KIM CRAWFORD AND THE LIGHTNING THEIF
by Kitkatsmeow
Summary: look, I didn't wanna be a half blood. If you think your a half blood, close this right now and believe what ever lie your parents told you about your birth and try to lead a normal life. I envy you for believing none of this ever happened. Don't say I diddnt warn you...
1. I accidentally vaporized my math teacher

KIM CRAWFORD AND THE LIGHTNING THEIF.

I really love the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan , so I decided to make a fanfic where Kim is in Percy's place kinda.

Chapter 1: I accidentally vaporize my pre-algebra teacher

I just had to use this part from the book:

Kim' pov

Intro-look, I didn't wanna be a half blood. If you think your a half blood, close this right now and believe what ever lie your parents told you about your birth and try to lead a normal life. Being a half blood is dangerous, it usually gets you killed in painful ways. But if your a normal person reading this for fiction great read on , I envy you for believing this isn't real!but if you recognize yourself in any of these chapters or you feel something on the inside, stop reading reading right away... You might one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it to, and the. They'll come and find you... Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Kim Crawford. I am 13 years old. Until a few months ago I was attending swathmoore academy,a boarding school for troubled kids. Am I a troubled kid, you could say that. I could start at any point in my miserable short life to prove it, but Things got really weird in may when my class took a trip to the seaford museum. 22 nut case kids, and 2 teachers on a school bus heading to seaford musesam to look at Ancient Rome and Greek stuff. I know sounds boring, most field trips are. But since rudy, our history teacher was leading the trip I had hope. Rudy was this middle aged adult who was immobilized and always wore this brown tweed jacket that smelled like coffe. You would think he would be lame, but he was my favorite teacher. He always let us play games in class and always told us these amazing stories. And he had this massive collection of Greek and Rome relics. He was the only class that I didn't snooze of in. I hoped the trip would be okay, at least I hoped I wouldn't get In trouble. I haven't exactly had the best luck with class trips in the past. In 5th grade we took a trip to this battle field, I got expelled because a cannon somehow blew up our bus...pshhhh totally wasn't me then in 4th grade we went to the aquarium and got s behind the scenes tour of the shark tank. Lets just say my class went for an unexpected swim. And then the year before that- you get the point. I was determined to not get in trouble on this field trip. All the way to the musesam, putting up with Claire Anderson the red head freckled whore throwing peanut butter sandwiches a my best friend Jerry. Jerry was an easy target. He was scrawny. He got frustrated easy. On top of all that he was crippled. He had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny like every step hurt him. But don't let him fool you, you should have seen him on taco day at school. Any who, Claire was throwing wads of sandwich at Jerry. She knew it irritated me, and I couldn't do anything about it because I was already on probation. The head master had threatened me with in school suspension. If any thing bad or embarressing happened on this trip

"I'm gonna kill her" I mumbled.

Jerry tried to calm me down " it's alright at least I like peanut butter" he told me. That's when I saw another was hit him.

" that's it" I yelled getting out of my sat only to be pulled down my Jerry.

"Your already on probation" he reminded me.

We know who would get blamed if anything happened.

Looking back at what just happened, I wish I had judo kicked Claire right there and then.

I mean in school suspension can't be that bad.,mean compared to the mess I was about to get myself into to. Rudy lead the tour. He weeled up front with his wheel chair.

Guiding us thought the big echoing hallways. Passing marble statues

And glass cases filled with artifacts. It blew my mind that is stuff had lasted so long! He gathered us around a big marble statue telling us about it. He told us about the carvings on the side, I was trying my best to focus, because it was kind of interesting, but everyone around me was every time I told them to shut up, jone, the chaperone, substitute teacher, gave me the evil eye. Jone was this little old math teacher from Alabama who always wore black. Even thought she was like 60, she looked like she could drive a motorcycle right into your wall. She came to swathmoore half way through the year when our old teacher,had a nervous breakdown. From her first day, Joan loved Claire and figures I was a evil little kid. She would point her crooked little wrinkly finger at

Me and say," now honey" And I knew I was gonna get detention for a month . One time after she had made me stay until12 erasing answers out of old workbooks, I told Jerry I didn't think Joan was a human, he looked at me super serious and said" your absolutely right."

Rudy kept talking about Greek funeral art, until Claire snickered something about some naked statue. And I turned around and said,

"Will you shut up" it came out louder than I wanted it to. The whole class started to laugh, causing ruddy to stop his speaking.

"Miss Crawford did you have a comment" he asked.

My face was totally red. " no sir" I said.

Rudy pointed to one of the statues

"Perhaps you'll tell us what this is" he said.

"It's..um" I started, but then I looked up at the carvings above it, at first it looked like Greek, but then it looked like it said Hercules.

"Is Hercules" I said.

"Very good Kim" he said

I heard some snickers from the group and I heard Claire say something like

Why do we have to learn this.

"Like its gonna say in our Job applications, who was this Greek god." Claire said.

"And why to answer miss Anderson's question does this matter in real life" Rudy asked me.

Rudy was the only one who ever caught her doing anything bad, he had ears like a hawk

I took a second to think about his question and then answerd,

"Um I'm not really sure sir" I told him

Rudy looked disappointed

"well have credit Kim."

"This is indeed Hercules."

"Alright jone take the kids outside for lunch" Rudy told her

I was about to follow when Rudy pulled me aside. I saw it coming

I told,Jerry to keep going. Then I turned to Rudy and he had this unreadable expression on his face.

"You must learn the answer to the question." Rudy said.

"You mean about Hercules?" I asked

"No about how all this relates to real life." Rudy told me.

"What you learn from me is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will except only the best from you Kimberly crawford." He said

I wanted to get angry. He was really pushing my buttons. Rudy wanted me to be like everyone else. Despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. Actually, he didn't want me to be like anyone else. He wanted me to be told me to go eat my lunch.. I got outside and the whole class gatherings on the steps of the musesam entrance head there was a large storm coming, with clouds blacker than I had ever seen.i figured maybe it was global warming or something because ever since Christmas the weather had been would have random floods or freezing snow storms.i wouldn't of been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

No one else noticed, they were all busy playing with their animal crackers and Claire was trying to pickpocket something out of s lady's purse, and of course jone wasn't seeing a thing. Jerry and me sat on the edge of the fountain away from the others thinking maybe if we did that people wouldn't think we were from that school, the school for losers.

"Detention" Jerry asked referring to why Rudy wanted me.

"Nah just Rudy asking me a question...I mean I'm not a genius," I said

Jerry hasn't said anything for a while

Then when I thought he was gonna say some long physiological answer he asked me " can I have your apple"

I didn't have much of an appetite so I let him take it. I watched the cars race by the street and thought of my moms apartment little ways from here. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so badly to just jump in a cab and head to her.i know she'd be happy to see me, but shed also be disappointed that I left.

Rudy sat at the end of the handicapped ramp eating celery and reading A paper back book. I was about to unwrap my sand which when Claire walked up to me with her ugly friends.i guess she had gotten tired of stealing from people because she dumped her half eaten lunch all over jerrys lap.

"Oops" she grinned at me with her ugly smile.

I tried to stay in control. The school councilor told me a thousand times to count to 10. But Claire made me so angry a loud wave went through my ears I don't remember touching her, but next thing I knew, she was on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Kim pushed me!"

Joan materialized next to me, while the other students whispered

"Did you see...the water... It came and grabbed her."

I didn't know what they were talking about all I knew was that I was in trouble...again

As soon as Joan was sure her precious Kim was okay, Joan turned on me.

There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I had done something she had been waiting for all year.

"Now honey" she started

"I know erasing work books for a whole month" I said

That was not the right thing to say.

"Come with me" she said.

"Wait it was me" Jerry yelled.

I couldn't believe he was covering for me.

Jerry was terrified of Joan. She glared at him and his skin trembled.

"I don't think so mister Martinez" she said to Jerry

"But you will stay here" she yelled at Jerry

He looked scared.

"It's okay jerr I will be fine!" I told Jerry

"Honey now" Joan barked.

Claire smirked. I gave her my ice cold death glare that said I will still hurt you. And she backed up behind her friend.

I turned around and Joan was already at the top of he steps gesturing me to follow. I wondered how did she get up there so fast?

When I was half way up the stairs I glanced back at Jerry, he looked as pale as a ghost. And he kept lookeing between me and Rudy as if he wanted him to know what was going on. But Rudy was absorbed in his novel. I glanced back up, Joan was already gone. She was inside the building at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay I thought... She's gonna make me buy a new shirt for claire at the gift shop... Since hers was soaked. But apparently that wasn't the plan. I followed her deeper into the museum until I caught up with her in the Greek and roman section. The gallery was completely empty except for us.

Joan stood with her arms crossed in front of a giant marble statue of the Greek gods. She was making this weird growling noise.

It's weird being alone with a teacher, epically Joan.

"You have been giving us problems honey" she said.

I said the safe thing, "yes m'am "

"Did you really think you would get away with it" she scoffed

"We are,not fools Kimberley , it was only a matter of time before we found out. Now confess and your consequences will be less painful." Joan told me

I didn't know what she was talking about, the only thing I thought of was that they found the secret stash of candy in my dorm.

"We'll" she demanded

"Mam I don't-" I was cut off

"Your time is up" she screeched. All of the sudden, her fingers stretched out into talons,her jacket melted into Giant wings, she wasn't human anymore. She was a old hag with wings, rotten fangs, and sharp claws and she was about to shred me like paper.

Then things got even weirder...

Rudy appeared in his wheel chair with a pen in his hand.

"Use this" he said tossing me his pen.

"This is a pen...this is a pen" I said. Just then Joan started to come at me. I yelped and dodged her only to hear her talons swiping the air beside me. The pen got knocked out of my hand in the process. I caught it and right when it hit my hand it transformed into a sword.

All of the sudden Joan flew at me. I did what my instincts told me. I swung the sword. It hit her shoulder but went right through her body like she was made of air.

"Hisssss" she um hissed loudly and then in a moment she became a puff of yellow smoke and was gone. She was vaporized on the spot. Her body was gone, but it still felt like her presence was there.

Them I looked at my hand and there was no sword. There was a ball point pen, I was alone. Rudy wasn't there anymore either. Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside. It started to rain. Jerry was sitting by the fountain, a musesam map,covering his head. Claire was still standing there soaking wet.

"I hope mrs. Smith kicked your butt" Claire said.

Wait who was mrs. Smith?

"Who" I asked

"Our teacher duh" she said

I blinked we had no teacher named mrs. Smith.

I asked Claire what she was talking about, she just rolled her eyes and walked back to her snobby friends.

I asked Jerry where Joan was.

He said "who"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me. I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny jerr, this is serious." I said. Just then there was a clash of thunder.

I saw Rudy sitting in his chair, as if he never moved.

I went over to him, he looked up, a little distracted .

"Ah that would be my pen" he said motioning to the ball point pen in my hand.

I handed it over, I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir, where's Joan" I asked. He stared at me blankly...great

"Who " he asked.

"The other chaperone , you know the pre algebra teacher!" I told him.

He looked at me concerned.

"Kim, there is no Joan on this trip. As far as I know there's never been a teacher at you feeling alright" he asked me.

DID YOU LIKE IT! I hope so it took me 4 hours to write. I already started chapter 2!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

Kim's pov.

the next few weeks had been weird. I mean I was used to things being a little off but this was just crazy. I thought that everyone was pulling a joke on me that Joan was gone. Every once in a while I would pull out a Joan reference on a student to see if I could get anything out of them. They just looked at me crazy. It got to the point where I almost believed them that Joan never existed. Almost. But Jerry couldn't fool me. Whenever I would say the name Joan. He would hesitate and then answer. Something was going on. Jerry defiantly knew some thing I diddnt. Something had happened at the museum.i diddnt have a whole lot of time to think about it because of school during the day. But when I went to bed, thoughts of Joan with fangs, and leathery wings kept appearing in my mind. Aside from that the weird weather continued. Which diddnt help at all. One night a snow storm blew out the power in my dorm room. A few days later, a giant hurricane broke the windows in my dorm! I started to feel cranky and annoyed for most of the time. My grades dropped from Bs to Cs. I got into tons of more fights with Claire. I got detention almost everyday! Finally when our English teacher mr. Par asked me for the millionth time why I don't study for my tests, I snapped. I called him an old sock. I wasn't really sure what it meant, but it just sounded right. The head master sent my mom a letter the next week, making it official that I would not be returning to swath Moore academy. That's okay, I told myself. I was homesick I wanted to be with my mom even if I had to go to public school and put up with my step father and is dumb poker parties. But, there were things that I would miss about swath more. The view of the woods out my window. The river in the horizon.i would miss Jerry whom had been my one and only friend. Even if he was a bit strange.i worried how he'd survive with me next miss history class to. With Rudy always having faith that I could do well. As final exams inched closer, history was the only test I had studied for.i most defiantly hadn't forgotten how h told me that the stuff I learned would be a matter of life or death. I wasn't sure why, but I had began to believe him. The night before the final I got so upset, I through my text book across my dorm room. There was no way I was gonna remember the difference between Chiron and caren. And remembering those Greek words. Forget it! I remembered the words Rudy had told me. "I will accept only the best from you Kim Crawford" his words leaving a mark in my mind. I thought about asking Rudy for help. Maybe if I talked to him, he could give me a couple of tips. Hey, I could apologize for the F I was about to get on his test. Plus, I diddnt want to leave swath more with Rudy thinking I diddnt try. I diddnt want hi, to be disappointed. I walked to the faculty floor. Most of the lights were of, but Rudy's was lite up like a Christmas tree. I was 2 inches away from the door handle when I heard voices. One was Rudy's and the other belonged to... Jerry? Rudy asked a question, and I heard Jerry's answer... "Worried about Kimberly sir." I cringed at my full name but wondered what they were talking about. I'm not particularly an eaves dropper but when I hear my name, i can't help it. I inched closer.

"I just don't want her alone this summer, I mean a kindly one in this school, they already know. It would make matters worse rushing her" Jerry said.

"She's not ready" Rudy said.

"But the summer solstice" Jerry said.

" let her enjoy herself while she still can" Rudy said.

"But she saw her" Jerry said

"It was her imagination a mist over the students and staff should be enough to convince her of that" Rudy said

"Rudy I can't fAil... Again" Jerry said.

"You haven't failed her, I should have seen Joan for what she just focus on keeping Kim alive till next fall" Rudy said.

My text book dropped. Making Rudy fall silent. I picked up the book and darted down the hall. A shadow of something tall made its way across Rudy's door, holding something that looked like an archers Bow. I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. Seconds later I heard a gallop on down the what sounded like a animal outside my door.a large dark shape paused at the glass on my door. Then moved on. My heart was racing and a beat of sweat dripped down my forehead. Then somewhere in the hallway Rudy said"nothing, my hearing hasn't been right since the winter solstice."

"Me neither, but I could have sworn-" Jerry started but got cut off.

"Go back to your dorm, you have a big day tomorrow" Rudy said.

The lights went out in Rudy's office. I waited for what seemed like forever. And when I was sure the coast was clear, I slipped back up to my dorm. When I got there my roommate, Jerry( yes I know boy and a girl together, just ignore it.)

Was lying on his bed with his text book like he had been there all night.

"Hey are you okay" he asked.

I stayed quiet

"You look awful" he said.

"Is everything okay." He asked.

" I'm just...um tired" I hesitated.

I turned around so that he couldn't tell I was lying, even though my voice went up a. Octave.

I went to the bathroom to change and get ready for bed. I thought about what I had heard back there, and diddnt understand one bit of it. I wanted to think that I had just imagined the entire thing. But something was clear. Rudy and Jerry were talking about my behind my back. They believed I was in some sort of trouble and danger. The next day as I was leaving the multiple hour final, my head swarming with thoughts of errors I had done on the test, Rudy called me back inside for I second I was scared he had found out about last night..

"Kim, don't be upset about leaving swath more. It's...it's for the best" he hesitated the last part. His voice was kind, but the words were his tone was hushed, the other kids could hear. I saw Claire smirk at me. I mumbled "okay sir"

"I mean this isn't the right place for you" Rudy said. I was shocked. My favorite teacher telling me I wasn't good enough infront of the class. I mean this guy told me I was great all year, and then he says I was destined to be kicked out? Something's not right.

"Right"'I said .

"No no, I meant your not normal" Rudy said.

"Thanks, thanks a lot for reminding me" I said.

"Kim" he yelled, but I was already out the door.

Don't mind me I'm just a line break c:

On the final day of exams, I shoved everything into my suitcase, while everyone else was joking around sharing their summer plans. They were delinquents like me, but they were wealthy had parents who were famous, or lawyers. But I was a nobody, from a family of nobody's. I mean my real father left when I was born. They asked me what I was doing. I told them I was going back to the city. What had dent mentioned was that I would need a summer job.

"That's cool" one of them said and then went back to their conversation. The only person I dreaded saying bye to was Jerry. He had been there for me through as it turned out I diddnt have to! He booked a ticket to the city on the same bus as I did. During the bus ride, Jerry kept starring nervously at all the passengers. It had just came to my mind, that he always had his guard up when we left swath more. Before this I always thought that he was worried about getting bullied, but there was no one to tease him. Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Looking for kindly ones" I slipped by acciedent

Jerry nearly jumped out of his seat.

"Psh what.. Wh what do you mean" he asked obviously lying.

Let's just say I confessed About spying on him and Rudy the night of the museum.

His eye twitched.

"How much did you hear" he asked cautiously

"Not much, what's the summer solstice deadline" I asked.

He flinched .

"See Kim I was just worried about you. I mean hallucinating about demon teachers" he said

"Jerry" I said.

"And I told him I was concerned about you" he continued

"Jerry your a really bad liar " I said.

His cheeks turn pink.

He fished out a card from his pocket with

"Just call me if you need me this summer." He said

The card had fancy lettering on it, which diddnt make it any easier for me to read. I finally made out what it said.

Jerry Martinez

Keeper

Half blood hill, Long Island New York.

8000090009

"What's half-" I started.

"Don't say it outloud" Jerry whispered\yelled.

"It's my summer address" he said.

Jerry had a summer home? I never thought his family was rich

"Okay?" I said..

" so like if I want to visit" he nodded.

"Or if you need me" he said hesitantly.

"Why would I need you" I asked.

"Look Kim, I kind of need to protect you" he sAid,

I looked at him. All year beat people up for him. But he was supported to protect me?

"Jerry...um what exactly are you protecting me from" I asked

Before he could answer a big grinding notice was heard from the bottom of the bus. Smoke filled the bus, and it smelt horrible.

The driver pulled over and got out to check the engine. After a couple of minutes he announced that we had to get off.

Jerry and I got of like everyone else. We were on a stretch of country the highway was an old worn Dow. Fruit was no customers. Just three old woman knitting the biggest socks ever. The lady on the right knitted one, and the lady on the left the other. The one in the middle held and enormous basket of yarn. They all looked historic. With old pale faced wrinkled as if they were raisins. Grey hair covered by bandanas. Thin bony bodies. But the weirdest thing was, they seemed to be starring directly at me... Creepy.

I looked over at Jerry to ask him about this. But he was as pale as a ghost.

"Jerry" I said.

"Hey chicka, tell me they aren't starring at you...they are aren't they" he said nervously.

"Yeah" I said

"This isn't funny Kim" he said..

The lady in the middle took out a large pair of scissors. I heard Jerry catch his breath.

"We are getting on The bus. Come on." Jerry said.

"What"I asked

"Come on" he said dragging me onto it.

He opened the door and climbed in, but I stayed back. The old ladies were still eying me,

The old lady cut the yarn, and I could hear that snip over 4 lanes of traffic!

The other 2 rolled up the socks leaving me thinking what they could possibly be for.

The bus engine roared. I guess the driver fixed it. People began to pile onto the bus.

Once we got on the bus Jerry diddnt look to good.

"Jerry what are you not telling me" I asked him

"Kim what did you see back there" he asked.

"You mean the old ladies..they aren't like Joan are they" I asked.

His expression made me think that they were much worse then Joan

"What did you see back there" he asked.

"All I saw was the middle one cut the string." I said.

"You saw he snip the cord" he asked nervously.

"Yeah" I said.

"This can't be happening I don't want this to be like last time " he mumbled

"What last time." I asked.

"Always 7th grade. They never get past 7th grade" he mumbled again .

"Jerry what are you talking about" I said

"Let me walk you home from the bus station...promise me" he said.

It seemed like a weird question, but I told him he could.

"Jerry does that snipping of the yarn...does that mean someone's gonna die" I asked.

He looked at me with a look, that made it seam like he was picking the flowers for my grave.

I ditched Jerry as soon as we got to the terminal

I know it was Rude, but he was scary me.

I caught the first taxi and told them my moms address.

A little word about my mom, her name is Olivia Crawford. She's the sweetest person ever. Which proves my theory that the nicest people have the worst mom and dad dies when she was 5, and she was raised by her aunt who diddnt care about her,

She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent her savings to go to a college With a good writing program. Then her uncle goT hurt and she had to quite college senior year to take care of him.

Once he died, she was left with nothing.

The only good thing that happened was when she met my father. But I don't remember him. Just the littlest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him though. She had no pictures. She told me that he was rich and important, so their relationship was a secret.

Then one day he set sail across the Atlantic and never came back. Lost at see, but not dead my mom told me.

She raised me on her own. She never once complained or got mad.

I knew I wasn't the best kid.

Eventually she married Ty ugliano .

He was nice the first 20 seconds then he showed his true colors as a grade a jerk

When I was younger I nicknamed him smelly Ty.

I'm sorry but its true. He smelt like mold and gym socks

With him and me, we made my mothers life pretty hard,

The way he treated her, the way him and me got along, we'll when I got home was a good example. I walked into my apartment hoping my mom would be home. But Ty was in the living room drinking having a poker party

Chips and beer cans were everywhere, not even looking up he mumbled

"So your home" in his groggy voice.

"Where's my mother" I asked.

"Working you got any cash" he said.

That was my breaking point. No welcome back. No good to see you, or how have you been.

Ty had out on some pounds. He looked like an insult to whales.

He always spent his money on beer.

When I was home he expected me to give him gambling money.

He called that our father daughter secret. Meaning he would punch the day lights out of me if I told my mom.

"I don't have any money" I told him

He scowled at me.

"Fine" I said fishing through my pockets collecting about 20 bucks.

"By the way, your report card came." He said.

I went to my room and put my suit Case on my bed.

Home sweet home I thought sarcastically

As soon as I thought about Joan or the old ladies my legs went weeks. I thought about the look on Jerry's face.i felt a surge of guilt rush through me. I shouldn't of left him there I thought .

I heard my name.

"Kim" a voice called. That voice belonged to my mother. In an instant all my thoughts were gone.

My mom opened my door.

She flashed me a warm smile. When she looks at me, she only sees the good, never the bad.

"Oh Kim" she ran and hugged me tight.

"You have grown so much" she said.

She brought me a huge bag of sample candy from where she worked. I attacked the blueberry sour strings while she stroked my hair. I told her everything that I hadn't in my letter.

From the other room I heard Ty yell to get her some beer.

I gritted my teeth.

My mom was the nicest person ever. She should have been married to a million air, not some jerk.

For her, I tried to sound happy about my last days at swath more.

I put such a good spin on the year. Even Claire diddnt seem so bad until the museum

"What" my mom asked.

"Did something frighten you" she said.

"No mom" I said nervously

She knew I was holding back but she diddnt want to push me.

"I have a surprise for you. We are going to the beach" she said.

"Ocean gate" I asked (its a beach by me)

" for 3 nights same house" she said.

"When" I asked.

"As soon as I get changed" she smiled.

I was so happy! Ty appeared in the door way "beer Olivia" he said. I wanted to punch him. I looks into my moms eyes and I realized this was a deal. She takes me to the beach and I play nice with Ty.

"I will let you go and take my car if you buy me 12 packs of beer" he said.

My mom nodded and said " I will by you 20 packs and the car will be in perfect condition"

He softened and said. "This is coming out of your clothing budget."

I wanted to say something but my moms eyes told me not to make him mad.

Why did she put up with him.

"I'm sorry I interrupted your poker game" I said.

"Yeah whatever" he said and walked away.

"Once we get to the beach we can't talk about whatever you diddnt tell me" she said.

An hour later we left to go.

Our rental house was on the south shore. It wasn't large, but big enough for us. I loved it.

She never really said why, but the beach was special to I knew why. It was where she met my father. As we got closer to the beach, she got happier.

We got there at sunset and unpacked.

When it got dark we set up a camp fire and talked about old stories.

I finally got the courage to ask about something I have been wondering my whole life. My father.

Okay so that was chapter 2.

Contest. So whoever answers this question right first gets their name in my story.

What color did Percy's mother make all their food?

Leave it on your review! Just tell me if your a boy or a girl and your name!


	3. Chapter 3

The winner was Sadielove2! Okay so I'm gonna do like 1 or to more contests but those are for later!  
Chapter 3!  
Kim's POV  
Moms eyes went all glassy. I figured that she would tell me what she always did, but I never got tired of hearing it.  
"He was kind, Kim" she said  
"He was tall, handsome,powerful, but gentle to. You have his blonde hair and green eyes" she said(I know that Kim has brown eyes, and I know that in the book it's brown hair)  
"I wish he could see you now Kim, he would be so proud of you" she said.  
What was there to be proud of I thought to myself  
I was a dyslexic C plus student who always got into trouble.  
"How old was I when he...left" I asked.  
"He was only with me for one summer Kim, right at this beach at this house" she said  
"But he knew me as a baby" I said.  
"No sweetly he knew I was having a baby he had to leave before you were born" she told me  
I tried to believe that, but I kept thinking there was something I remembered about him. A warm glow, a had always assumed he knew me as a baby, but my mom never said it, I just had this to be told that he never even saw me, I was angry at him maybe it was stupid but I resented him for going on that ocean trip. For leaving us. And now we were stuck will smelly Ty.  
"Are you gonna send me to another boarding school" I asked.  
"I'm not sure honey" she said  
"I think we will have to do something" my mom said.  
"Because you don't want me around" I regretted the words as soon as I said them.  
My moms eyes were misty. She grabbed my hand. I hated seeing my mom cry. Seeing her cry made me want to, and I never cried.  
"Oh Kim, no... I have to honey for your own good" she said. Her words reminded me of what Rudy had said.  
"Because I'm not normal" I said.  
"Kimmy you say that like its a bad thing, you have no idea how important you are... I thought swath lore would keep you save" she said the last part seriously.  
"Safe from...what" I asked  
She met my eyes. All the creepy things that happened to me flooded my mind.  
Like in 3rd grade this creepy guy in a trench coat was stalking me. The teachers threatened him and he left growling. And nobody believed me that under his disguise, he only had one eye like he was a Cyclopes! Before that, I was in preschool and the teacher out in into a cot that a snake had accidentally gotten into... How does a snake... Get into a preschool...  
In every school I went to something weird happened and I was forced to move.  
I knew I should tell my mom about Joan and the 3 old ladies. But there was something holding me back. I thought by telling her it would end our trip, and I diddn want that.  
"I tried to keep you as close to me as I could, but that was a mistake. There's only one other option" my mom said.  
"We'll what is is" I asked her.  
"The place your father wanted you to go and I just can't stand to do it" she said.  
"And what exactly is this place",I asked.  
"A summer camp" she said.  
Thoughts were spinning in my head.,why would my dad...whom never even met me want me to go to a summer camp?and if this camp was oh so important why diddnt my mom say anything about it before?  
"I'm sorry Kim I can't talk about it,,I can't send you to that place because it might mean goodye forever." She said  
"For good, but it's only a summer camp" I said  
I saw the look in my moms eyes. I knew that if I asked any further questions she would cry. That night I had the a dream where it was storming at the beach, and an eagle and a white horse were eagle slashed the horse and the horse kicked the eagles wings the fight was making the ground shake. There was a voice telling them to fight more. I ran toward them telling them to stop each other. I was running in slow motion so I knew i wasn't gonna get here in time. The eagle aimed its beak at the horses eye and swooped down. I yelled no and woke up with a fright from my horrible dream.  
When I awoke. There really was a type that would knock over trees and houses.  
With the next thunder clap my mom woke. He sat up eyes wide and said hurricane. There was never hurricanes here especially this time of year. Them there was a banging on the door and Jerry was standing there out of breath... Except he wasn't exactly Jerry.  
"Searching all night" he breathed.  
"You shouldn't of done that chicka" he said  
My mom looked at Jerry in horror, but not because of him, because of what he said.  
"Kim, what happened at school" she asked.  
I was frozen looking at Jerry and then he mumbled something in Greek and then said  
"You diddnt tell her" wait he just cursed at me in Greek and I completely understood it.  
On top of all hat Jerry was there but where his legs should be there was there was...  
My mom looked at me and then real sternly said "Kim tell me now."  
I told her about the ladies and Joan. She grabbed her purse and tossed me my coat.  
" To the car, now, both of you" she said.  
We well I ran and Jerry kind of galloped, and suddenly it all made sense. Jerry couldn't walk, but he could run because we're his feet should be there were no feet there were hoves!  
We were in the car and it was thundering and lighting bad. I looked over at Jerry and I diddnt know if I was just imaging or not, but it looked like he was wearing some sort of shaggy pants.  
But no, the,smell was one I remembered from field trips like wool.  
All I could think to say was " so mom, you and Jerry know each other"  
"Not exactly we never met in person but I knew He was watching you" my mom said.  
"Watching me" I asked.  
"Keeping tabs on you making sure you were okay." My mom said.  
"But I wasn't faking being you friend he said, I am your friend" Jerry said  
"Um what are you exactly" I asked  
"That doesn't matter right now" he said.  
"Seriously doesn't matter... Um my best friend is a donkey from the waist down" I said.  
"Goat" he said.  
"What " I asked .  
"I am a goat from the waist down, not a donkey" he said.  
"You just said it diddnt matter" I said.  
"There are Sayters who would trample you for an insult like that" he said.  
"Woah back up a sec hon, Sayters the the myths Rudy talked about" I asked  
"We're the 3 ladies a myth Kim, was Joan a myth?" He asked.  
"Aha so you admit there was a Joan" I said.  
"Of coarse" Jerry said.  
"Then why-"  
"The less you knew the safer you were, we put mist over the others. We hoped you'd believe it was a dream but it was no good. You started to realize who you were." Jerry said  
"What do you mean who I-" a large notice rose up behind us.  
What ever was chasing us was on our tail.  
"Kim no time for questions we have to get you to saftey." My mom said.  
"Safety from what" I asked cautiously.  
"Oh you know..just The Lord of the dead and his blood thirsty minions" Jerry said still pissed abut the donkey comment.  
"Jerry" my mom said.  
"Sorry mrs. Crawford." He said.  
I tired to figure out what was happening. But I couldn't I knew this wasn't a dream.  
My mom made a big swearve.  
"Where are we going" I asked.  
"The summer camp,I told you about the place your father wanted to send you" she said.  
"The place you diddnt want me to go to" I asked.  
"Kim this is hard enough " she said.  
"Because three old hags cut yarn" I asked,  
"Those weren't old ladies" Jerry said  
" those were the fates they only appear if someone is about to die."  
"You mean me" I asked.  
" I diddnt say you I Said someone" Jerry said,  
"But you implied it" I said.  
"Jerry, kim stop it" my mom said  
Then the car made a turn and I got a glimpse of the thing she was trying to avoid.  
A dark shape now lost behind us.  
"What was that" I asked.  
"We are almost there' another mile. "She said  
I diddnt know where we were going but I wanted to get there fast.  
I thought about Joan and the moment she transformed. She really wasn't human she wanted to kill me. Then I thought about the pen/ sword. I was gonna ask Grover about it. But there was a flash and then a boom. I peeled my fore head off the drivers seat, I heard my mom yell my name.  
"I'm fine" I yelled. I realized we were in a ditch.  
Next to me was Jerry blood trickling from his mouth.  
"Kim we have to go" my mom said. Then there was a flash and I saw the figure again.  
"Who is" I started.  
"Kim get out of the car"my mom said.  
"Kim you have to run, see that big tree" she said,  
I looked and saw this giant tree  
"That's the property line once you get there keep running till you see this big house. Them yell for help and don't look back" she said.  
"Your coming with me" I said.  
When I looked at her she had sad eyes  
"You have to help me carry Jerry" I said.  
The figure kept coming toward us.  
"He doesn't want us, he wants you besides I can't cross the property line, you have to go now" she yelled. I was angry at her and Jerry, at the thing with horns.  
I climbed across Jerry and opened the door.  
We dragged Grover out and started to make our way up hill. Glancing back I got a good look at the creature. It was 7 feet tall, had giant horns,big muscles, he had corse brown hair all over. It was scary! I recognized the monster it was in a story Rudy told me.  
"But it's a min-" I started.  
"Don't say it's name, names have power."  
I glanced back again the monster was sniffling around our car.  
"Why is he doing that we are like 50 feet away" I asked .  
"It has terrible sight and hearing but horrible smell." My mom said.  
The thing threw the car down the rode creating sparks and loud noises.  
"Kim when he sees us hell charge when hem gets close jump out of the way, they can't turn well. I should have expected this, I knew it would happen" my mom said.  
The bull thing sensed us. We were a few yards away from the tree, but the hill was getting steeper.  
"Go Kim" she said.  
I diddnt want to leave her but I had to I turned left and I saw it. He charged and at the last moment jumped to the side.  
The thing was frustrated and it turned, but not toward me, toward my mom. Who was setting Jerry down. We reached the crest of the hill and I saw a field and a farm house just as my mom said.  
The bull thing kept eying my mom as she retreated down hill.  
"Run Kim" she said.  
I just stood there in fear. She tried to side step like me but it diddnt fool him this time, he grabbed her.  
"Go" she chocked out  
I was frozen. She disappeared in a golden dust as if she was a a flash she was gone.  
"No" I screamed. Now I was filled with a new found anger. It made me stronger. Like the surge of energy when I saw Joan grow wings. The bull man smelled my best friend. I pulled of my red coat and pretended to be a bull rider hey stupid I called. Over here I screamed and I melt yelling things to get his attention. It turned toward me. I put my back to the tree waving my red coat. The bull man charged at me and the. I attacked it. It slammed me into a tree. I locked arms around its horns. It tried to Knock me off, but I was holding on for life...literally.  
The bull man charged toward Jerry who kept growning food. The bull thing flew me off, I landed on the grass, my vision blurry. I had a ...horn in my hand. Then it came charging at ,  
Me and without thinking I stabbed him with the broken bull horn, right in the rib cage. It roared in agony.. Then it was gone. The rain had stopped, but the storm had still gone in the background. My legs were weak and I smelt like livestock. My head hurt. I was weak. I managed to get jerry and I got to the house and the last thing I remember was collapsing on the porch with a familer man and a boy with brown hair and brown eyes saying  
"She has to be the one."  
"Silence jack she's still awake being her inside" the man said.


	4. Chapter 4

I kept having these dreams about farm animals. And whenever I would wake up I would immediately fall back asleep. The first time I woke up the brown haired boy from before was in the corner smirking. "What will happen at the summer solstice"he asked me.

"What" I asked him.

He looked around to see if anyone was watching. "What was stolen we only have a few weeks."he said

"Um sorry I don't-" then I fellback asleep.

The next time I awoke there was a girl standing in the corner with atleast a dozen eyes. The last time I awoke, I was sitting on a porch. To my right was a table with a glass filled to the top with a liquid I assumed was for me. I got this pain in my Mouth. I was so weak that when I picked up the drink I nearly dropped it.

"Careful " a familer voice said. Jerry was leaning against the porch.

He was wearing converse, jeans and a bright orange te shirt that said camp half blood

Just plain old Jerry. Not the goat boy.

So maybe I had a nightmare. Maybe I was still on vacation and we stopped here.

"You saved my life" Jerry said.

"I went back to the hill...thought you might want this" he said placing a shoe box on my lap.

Inside was a bulls horn. It hadn't Been a nightmare.

"The minator " I said

"Uh Kim I wouldn't" Jerry said.

"That's what they call it in Greek myths half man half bull." I said.

Jerry shifted uncomfortably.

"You have been out for 2 days how much do you remember" he asked

" my mom is she really" I asked.

He looked down. I starred across the field.

My mother was gone. The whole world was black and cold to me.

"I'm sorry, I'm the worst Sayter in the world!" Jerry said. He stomped and his shoe flung off revealing hooves. Well that settles it, Jerry was a Sayter.

But I was to miserable to realize they existed. Or minators. All that meant was that my mom really was gone.

I was alone, an orphan. I would have to live with Ty? No. Not happening.

Jerry was still snuffling, I felt bad for the poor boy, goat, Sayter, thing. He looked like someone was about to hit him.

I said, "it's not like this was your fault."

"Yeah it was, I was supposted to protect you!" Jerry said.

"Did my mom ask you to" I said.

"No but that's my job, I'm a Keeper at least I...was." Jerry told me.

"But why" I said... I suddenly felt dizzy

"Don't strain yourself" Jerry told me picking up the drink, bringing the straw to my mouth.

When I drank it, it tasted like my moms home made cookies. Warm and sweet. I hadn't even realize I finished the whole glass. My whole body felt strong and good. The sorrow hadn't gone away, but it felt like my mom had just given me a hug.

"Was it good " Jerry asked.

"Yeah"I said.

"What did it taste like" he asked.

"Sorry I should have let you try it." I said

"NO! That's not what I meant, I just wondered." He said.

"It tasted like my moms homemade chocolate chip cookies" I said.

"And how do you feel" he asked.

"Like I could throw Claire Anderson a mile." I said.

" that's good Kim ... That's good" he said.

"What do you mean" I asked.

He took the glass from my hands and put it on the table.

"Come on, Chiron and mr. D are waiting" he said.

I got up but my legs were wobbly Jerry offered to help me but he looked bad enough already. The porch was big. It wrapped around the whole house. Then Jerry offered to hold the minator horn, but I kept it. I payed for that souvenier the hard way. I was not letting it go.

As we came around the opposite side of the house, I caught my breath.

I looked ahead, the valley reached all the way to the front of the ocean. Which was about a mile away.

Between here and there I couldn't process what I was seeing. Landscapes with buildings that looked like Ancient Greek architecture, and open air pavilion, a theater, an outdoor arena.

Expect they all looked brand new. The white glassy marble columns. In a large patch of sand, a group of teen kids and Sayters playing volley ball, and in a lake they were boating. OKids dressed in orange tee shirts like Jerry's were chasing each other around cabins in the woods

Some shot targets at an archery range, or some rode horses down a trail, and unless I was dreaming, the horses had wings. Down at the end of the porch, two men sat at a table playing cards. The brown haired boy who was in my room, when I woke up the first time, was leaning on the porch behind them. The man facing me was small, but beefy. Red nose, big watery eyes and curly hair that was really dark black. He looked like those little babies with wings in the Greek paintings I think they we're called hububs. No, cherubs. That's it. He looked the a cherub who had turned middle aged in a trailer park. He was wearing a tiger print shirt, and he would have fit in with Ty's poker parties except I got a feeling. This guy could out gamble my step father. And that's saying something.

"That's mr. D, he's the camp directer be polite, the boy, that's jack brewer,he's just a camper, but he's been here a long time...and you already know Chiron " Grover mumbled. He pointed at the guy who's back was to me. First I realized he was sitting in a wheel chair, then I reconized the tweet jacket and the smell of coffee.

"Rudy?" I asked.

The history teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that glint that he used to get in class when he gave us a pop Quiz and made all the answers B.

"Ah good Kim now we have 4 for pinochle . He offered me a seat next to mr. D who looked at me with his blood shot eyes and sighed.

"Uh I suppose I must say it, welcome to camp half blood, now don't expect me to be to happy to see you" mr. d said.

"Thanks I guess." I said taking a step back. Because if I had learned anything from my time with smelly Ty, it was to know when a person had to much to drink.

"Jack" Rudy said making the boy with brown hair step forward,

"Why don't you go check on Kim's bunk, we will be putting him in Cabin 11...for now" Rudy said. Jack nodded."sure Chiron" jack said. He looked about my age. Maybe a few inches taller. His eyes were this grayish brown color, I know it sounds ugly, but it wasn't, they were so intense. Almost like he was analyzing ways to take someone down. He glanced at the horn in my hand and then back at me. I was thinking he would say something along the lines of your awesome or how did you do that. But he diddnt. He just waved and left. But I'm glad he hadn't said anything. I was never one who wanted a Ton of attention.

I wanted to change he subject because there was this silence, but not a comfortable one... It was just plain old awkward.

"So um Rudy you work here" I asked.

"Not Rudy dear, it's Chiron" he corrected.

"That was a fake name. You may call me Chiron." He said. I was orally confused at the moment. I looked at the camp directed.

"and does mr. D stand for something" I asked.

He stopped shuffling his cards and looked at me like I just passed gas.

"Young lady names are very powerful things. You don't just go,around using them." Mr. D spat.

"Oh right sorry" I said fastly.

"I have to say Kim I'm glad to see you alive" Rudy... I mean Chiron said.

"Me to" I mumbled.

"I usually don't do house calls." Rudy said.

"House calls?" I asked.

"Yeah...we have sayters at every school, but Jerry told that he sensed something in you, so i decided to come check it out for myself. My year at swath Moore was to look over you." Chiron\rudy said.

"So your whole year at swath more was to watch me" I asked confused.

"I will be honest, I was skeptical at first. We called your mother to let her know what was happening." Chiron said.

"You do know how to play pinochle" mr. D asked.

"Sorry I'm afraid I don't" I said.

"You mean I'm afraid I don't SIR" mr. D said.

"Sir" I corrected to think of it, I was liking this guy less and less.

"We'll, it is along with gladiator fighting an PACman I would expect a young girl to know t"he rules." mr. D said.

"I'm sure she can learn" Chiron said.

"Where exactly am I, what is this place?" I asked.

"Rud- I mean Chiron why did you go to swath more just to teach me"I questioned

The camp director dealt the cards, Jerry flinched every time one landed in his pile, what was so scary about me. D?

"Kim did your mom tell you nothing?" Chiron asked.

" she told Me that she diddnt want me to go here, even though my dad wanted me to. That she diddnt want me to go, since she was afraid I would never return she wanted to keep me close " I answered.

"Typical" mr. D grunted.

"I'm afraid there's to much to explain " Chiron said.

"We'll Kimberley, you know that your friend Jerry is a Sayter , you know that you killed a minator. What you may not know is that you have great power. And with great power comes great responsibility...remember that...gods the ones you call the Greek gods... Are very alive" Chiron said.

"You mean to tell me that Zeus, Apollo, Hermes and all the others are real" I asked

Then thunder boomed.

"You can't just through names around like that casually"mr. D said.

"But they are stories and myths" I said...

"Kim you may chose to believe in them or not, but the word immortal, means immortal and can you just picture that staying the way you are, for,ever, never changing" Chiron said,

I was about to answer off the top of my head, but the tone in his voice made me stop.

"So weather people believed in you or not" I said.

"Precisely if you we're a god how would you enjoy being called fake, or a story what if I told you one day people would call you a myth" Chiron,said

"I would hate it, but I don't believe in gods" I said

"Oh you better before one of them hurts you" mr. D said

"Sir she's just lost her mother she's in shock" Jerry said in a scared tone

"Bad enough I'm stuck here working with kids who don't even believe."mr. D said

Mr. D waved his hand and in an instant, a glass with red whine appeared. My jaw had dropped, but Jerry and Rudy barely looked up.

"Mr. D your um restriction" Rudy/Chiron warned.

"Old habits sorry" he yelled and the sky boomed

Mr. D waved his,hand and a diet Pepsi appeared.

I looked at Chiron for an answer.

"Mr. D offended his father a couple years back fell in love with a nymph that was off limits"

"A nymph " I asked

"Yes,father adores to punish me, the first time, probation, worst decade of my life, second time, well the nymph was really pretty and now I'm here" mr. D confessed

"And your dad is...-" I said

"Di Immortales, I thought you taught this girl the basics, my father is Zeus." Mr. D said

I ran through the The Greek names that began with , tiger skin, the ways all sayters were scared of him.

"Your Dionysus, god of wine!" I said\ yelled

"Jerry what do the teens say these days, do they say well duh?" Mr. D asked.

"Um yes sir." Jerry stuttered

"We'll duh Kim! Did you think I was Artemis?" Mr D asked

"Your a...god" I said astonished.

"Yes I am" mr. D said

"A god ... You" i said

Then he turned to me and looked me right in the eyes. There was this purplish kind of fire in them. I saw visions of grape vines choking people and drunken warriors fighting to the had a feeling that if I got on mr. D's bad side anymore than I had, I wouldn't see daylight.

"Kim, would you like to test me" mr. D asked.

"No sir" I said quickly.

"I believe I win, Chiron" mr. D said.

"Not quite the game goes to me this time" Chiron said

I thought mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron, but instead he sighed and said " I'm tired I think I'm gonna take a nap before tonight's sing along. Come along Jerry, we need to discuss your- less than perfect assignment "

"Yes sir" Jerry said

"Cabin 11, Kim, and mind your manners please" mr d said.

He went into the farm house with Jerry following,

"Old mr. D Downey hate you, he just can't wait to go back to mount Olympus" Chiron said.

"Wait there's really a palace there" I asked.

"We'll, Kim there's a mount Olympus in Greece. And there's the home of the gods, which was indeed in Greece. But, the palace moves, just as the gods do" Chiron said.

"Wait so the gods are like here in America?" I asked.

"The gods move with the west " Chiron said.

"What do you mean" I asked.

"They move to the places with the um brightest flame. It started in Greece, then went to Rome, then France, then so forth." Chiron said.

"And then... They die" I asked

"No child they don't die,they simply move. Like I said. They move with the is now the heart of the flame, like it or not. It's where the gods are." Chiron said.

"Who am I Chiron" I asked.

"Who are you- that's a question we all want to know" Chiron said.

Then he did the impossible or so I the way things have been going, this is probably one of the most normal things I've seen all day. Chiron rose from is wheel chair. He was half horse! First Jerry being half goat and now him being half horse.

"Come along Kim, lets go meet the other campers!" He said.


	5. Chapter 5

Kim's POV  
Once I had gotten over the fact that my history teacher was a horse... I had a pretty nice tour of the camp. When we passed the volley ball pit, many of the campers nudged each other. One pointed the Minotaur horn and said "that's her."  
Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were all bigger than Jerry as well. I wasn't normally shy, but their starring made me uncomfortable. It was like they expected me to do a perfect flying dragon kick or something... Which not bragging or anything... But I can do that.  
I looked back at the farm house. It was bigger than I thought 3 or 4 stories high. Something caught me eye. Something moved in one of the windows on the top floor, and I got a feeling I was being watched.  
"What's up there" I asked Chiron, pointing to the window where I thought I saw something.  
His smile faded."just the attic" he said.  
"Does anyone live there" I asked.  
He looked like he was trying to word what he was saying next carefully, then he said, "no, not a single...living thing"  
I knew he was being truthful, but I know something moved up there.  
"Follow me Kim, you have lots to see" Chiron said.  
My mind shifted to Jerry, I hoped he wasn't in trouble.  
"Chiron, is Jerry going to be okay" I asked.  
He explained to me that, Jerry was sent to do his job as a keeper and bring a half blood back to camp. Then he said they might not see that assignment as successful, because he lost me in New York, and my mother. The council may question if he's any help to us.  
I wanted to object, after all, none of the things that occurred were Jerry's fault. I also felt a pang of guilt. If I hadn't ditched him at the bus stop, he might not of gotten in trouble.  
"He'll get a second chance right" I asked.  
"I'm afraid you were his second chance, Kim" Chiron said.  
"Wait what happened the first time" I asked.  
"Nothing that concerns you Kim now come along ." He said.  
"Chiron?" I asked. "Yes Kimberly" he said.  
"If the gods are real... Does that mean the under world is to" I asked.  
He hesitated he was trying to chose his words carefully.  
"Yes child, there is a place where spirits go after they die, until we know more, I suggest you put that thought out of your head." Chiron said.  
"What do you mean until we know more" I asked cautiously.  
"Let's,go see the woods" Chiron said dropping the subject  
We passed an armory, what kind of camp has an armory?  
We also passed a sign that read 'spear and sword fight'  
"Spear and sword fight" I asked.  
"Cabin challenges, usually not lethal. Ah there's the mess hall" Chiron said.  
He pointed to an outdoor pavilion, there were stone columns but no roof. There was a lot of picnic tables everywhere.  
"What do you do when it rains"  
"We have to eat don't we" Chiron gave me a weird look so I dropped the subject.  
Finally he showed me the cabins, there were 12, they were in the shape of a U. With 2 at the base, and 5 on either side. Yeah... These buildings are defiantly one of a kind.  
They each had a brass number, odds on the right and evens on the left.  
Each house was different. Number nine had smoke stacks like a factory. Number 4 had to tomatoes and green grass on the roof.  
Number 7 was made of gold which shinned so bright in the sun, that it was nearly impossible to look all faced a court yard about the size of a soccer field. It was filled with statutes and fountains and a few basket ball hoops.  
In the center of all of it, was a giant fire a pit.  
The cabins at the head of the field looked like his and hers.  
"Zeus and Hera" I asked.  
"Correct" Chiron said.  
"They look vacant" I said.  
"Several are, that's true, no one lives in 1 or 2." Chiron said.  
Okay, so each cabin had a different god, sorta like a mascot. 12 cabins for the twelve Olympians, but why would several be empty.  
I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin 3.  
It kind of had this ocean-like theme to it.  
I peeked inside the doorway.  
"Oh I would not do that" Chiron said.  
Before he could pull me back, I got a good look at the interior.  
There were 6 empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down.  
There wasn't any sign of anyone living there, the place was sad and lonely.  
I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder guiding me out.  
Number 5 was fire engine red, with a really bad paint roof had barbed wire, and a giant boar head was hanging over the I saw a bunch of mean looking kids, fighting and arguing. The loudest was a girl maybe about 13 she wore a size XXL camp half blood shirt, under a camo saw me staring and gave me an evil glare . She reminded me of Claire, accept, she had brown hair unlike Claire..  
I kept walking, staying clear of chirons hooves.  
"We haven't seen any other centaurs " I observed.  
"No, my people are wild folk. You may encounter them at a sporting event, or in the wilderness, but not here." Chiron said.  
"You said your name was Chiron are you really..." I started.  
"The Chiron from the stories, trainer of Hercules and all that yes that's me" he said.  
"Shouldn't you be dead?"  
"I don't know if I should be. The truth is I can't be dead. Eons ago the gods granted my wish. That I could continue my Job as a hero teacher for as long as the universe needed me. I gained much from that wish...but I also lost a lot." He said.  
"Does it ever get...boring" I asked,  
"No, not boring, horribly depressing at times, but never boring." He said.  
"Why depressing" I asked.  
Chiron seemed to be hard at hearing again.  
"Oh look, jack is waiting for us" he said.  
DON'T MIND ME IM JUST A LINE BREAK.  
sitting on the steps of cabin 11, was the brunette boy I had met at the big house. He was looking at a book. I tried to see what it was called but I couldn't read the title. I thought it was my dyslexia acting up, then I realized the title wasn't even English, it was Greek, I mean literally Greek.  
"Jack, I have a masters archery class at noon, would you take kim from here? " Chiron asked.  
"Yes sir" jack said.  
"Cabin 11, make your self at home" Chiron said, motioning towards the cabin.

out of all the cabins, 11 was the most normal. Inside was packed with people. Bunk beds and sleeping bags Crowded it. Chiron diddnt go in. The door way was to small for him. But when the campers saw him they bowed respectfully.  
"We'll than, good luck Kim, I'll, see you at dinner." Chiron said leaving  
"We'll, go,on" jack said nudging me. I could feel the eyes on me.  
"Kim Crawford, meet cabin 11" jack said.  
"Regular, or undetermined" someone asked.  
I diddnt know what to say but jack answered "undetermined"  
Everyone groaned.  
"Now now campers, this is what we are here for, you can take that spot right over there, Kim" a girl who looked about 19 answered.  
"This is Donna, she's your counselor for now" jack said  
"For now" I asked.  
"Your undetermined, they don't know what cabin you belong in so your here, this is Hermes cabin, he's the god of travelers so its only natural." Donna said.  
"How long will I be here" I asked.  
"Until your determined" Donna said.  
"And how long will that take" I asked.  
The campers all laughed.  
"Come on Kim ill show you the volley ball court" jack said.  
"Come on." he grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.  
When we were a few feet away, jack said, "Crawford you have to do better than that."  
"What?"  
He rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."  
"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy-"  
"Don't talk like that!" Jack told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"  
"To get killed?"  
"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"  
I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..." "Yes."  
"Then there's only one."  
"Yes."  
"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..." "Monsters don't die, Kim They can be killed. But they don't die."  
"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."  
"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can escape them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche-types. Eventually, they re- form."  
I thought about Joan. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword-"  
"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."  
"How did you know about Joan?"  
"You talk in your sleep."  
"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"  
Jack glanced nervously at the ground, as if he expected it to open up and swallow him "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."  
"Look, is there anything we can say without it thunder-ing?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."  
I pointed to the first few cabins, and jack turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Kim. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."  
He stared at me, waiting for me to get it.  
"My mom is Sally Crawford," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."  
"I'm sorry about your mom, that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."  
"He's dead. I never knew him."  
Jack sighed. Clearly, he had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father's not dead, Kim."  
"How can you say that? You know him?"  
"No, of course not."  
"Then how can you say-"  
"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."  
"You don't know anything about me."  
"No?" He raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."  
"How-"  
"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."  
I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"  
"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is wired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD-you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle-field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Kim, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."  
"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"  
"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."  
"Ambrosia and nectar."  
"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half- blood."  
A half-blood.  
I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.  
Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"  
I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.  
"Clarisse," jack sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?" "Sure, Mister perfect ," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."  
''Erre es korakas!" Jack said, which I somehow under-stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feel-ing it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."  
"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"  
"Kim Crawford," jack said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."  
I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"  
Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"  
"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."  
Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Kimmy."  
"Kim."  
"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."  
"Clarisse-" jack tried to say.  
"Stay out of it, wise guy"  
Jack looked pained, but he did stay out of it, and I didn't really want his help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.  
I handed jack my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.  
I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking-as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out-that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier toilets.  
Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.  
"Like she's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, she was so stupid looking."  
Her friends snickered.  
Jack stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.  
Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.  
Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.  
I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hit-ting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.  
She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The show-ers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.  
As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.  
The entire bathroom was flooded. Jack hadn't been spared. He was dripping wet, but he hadn't been pushed out the door. he was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.  
I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.  
I stood up, my legs shaky. Jack said, "How did you ..." "I have no clue."  
We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was socked and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new girl. You are totally dead."  
I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."  
Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.  
Jack stared at me. I couldn't tell whether hewas just grossed out or angry at me for dousing ?" I asked. "What are you thinking?"  
"I'm thinking," he said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."

**okay I'm soooo sorry I haven't updated, honestly I have no excuse. Anyways I'm posting another chapter tomorrow soooo yeah!**


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER7 MY DINNER GOES UP IN SMOKE

KIM'S POV

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just star-ing at jack, who was still pretty much dripping wet.

he showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts- and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

"I've got training to do," jack said "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Jack, I'm sorry about the toilets." "Whatever."

"It wasn't my fault."

He looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," jack said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.

I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage guys at the base of the pier, about twenty feet smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.

I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.

"Don't encourage them," jack warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

Jack frowned. "Don't you get it, Kim ? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.

"God," I said. "Half-god."

Jack nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Kim . He's one of the Olympians."

"That's ... crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"But those are just-" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-"

"Demigods," jack said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

His hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.

"My dad is a professor at West Point," he said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."

"He's human."

"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive?"

"Who's your mom, then?"

"Cabin six."

"Meaning?"

Jack, straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

Okay, I thought. Why not?

"And my dad?"

"Undetermined," jack said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows." "Except my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not, Kim. Gods don't always reveal their iden-tities."

"My dad would have. He loved her."

Jack gave me a cautious look. He didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his daughter. Sometimes it happens.

"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"

Jack ran his palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Kim. They ignore us."

I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.

"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends," jack said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"So monsters can't get in here?"

Jack shook his head. "Not unless they're inten-tionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes."

"Practical jokes?"

"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."

"So ... you're a year-rounder?"

Jack nodded. From under the collar of his T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with 6 clay beads of differ-ent colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.

"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."

"Why did you come so young?"

he twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."

"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"

"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever hap-pens. The last time ..."

Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well. "Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-" "Ambrosia."

"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."

Jacks shoulders tensed. "So you do know some-thing?"

"Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Jerry and Chiron talking about it. Jerry mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"He clenched his fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."

"You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us year-rounders-Donna and Clarisse and I and a few others-we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"But... how did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." He looked at me like hewas sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"

"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.

"Right after we visited," jack continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean- Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."

I shook my head. I wished I could help him, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.

"I've got to get a quest," jack muttered to her-self. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem ..."

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Jack must've heard my stomach growl. He told me to go on, he'd catch me later. I left him on the pier, trac-ing his finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.

The counselor, Donna , came over. She had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on her right cheek, but her smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," she said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store." I couldn't tell if she was kidding about the stealing part.

I said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Donna sat next to me, pushed herback against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."

"Yeah," she said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in her voice surprised me, because Donna seemed like a pretty easygoing girl . SHe looked like she could handle just about anything.

"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.

SHe pulled a switchblade out of her back pocket, and for a second I thought she was going to gut me, but she just scraped the mud off the sole of her sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, mer-chants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."

I figured Donna didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

I waited, thinking that if she wanted to tell me,she'd tell me. Apparently, she didn't. I wondered if the story had any-thing to do with how she got her scar.

Donna looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Kim . The campers here, they're mostly good peo-ple. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

SHe seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older girl like her-even if she was a counselor-should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Donna had welcomed me into the cabin. SHe'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

I decided to ask her my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then jack ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' He said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"

Donna folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

Her face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Jacks been dying to get out into the world. he pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew his fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell him the whole thing, but he said jack wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. He had to wait until... somebody special came to the camp."

"Somebody special?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Donna said. "Jack wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's din-nertime."

The moment she said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.

Donna yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cab-ins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Jack sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Donna said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid. Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."

The soda turned a violent shade of blue

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my mother.

She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...

"Here you go, Kim ," Donna said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Donna told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw-berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Donna murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"You're kidding."

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

Donna approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes." I was next.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames. When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

When everybody had returned to their seats and fin-ished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd bet-ter say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Kate crawfish."

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Kim Crawford" Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing- along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

HEHE 2 chapters I'n one night and another Tommorow!

READ AND REVIEW


	7. Chapter 7

8 WE CAPTURE A FLAG

The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.

Each morning I took Ancient Greek from jack , and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered jack was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.

The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activi-ties, looking for something I was good at. Chiron tried to teach me archery, but we found out pretty quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He didn't complain, even when he had to desnag a stray arrow out of his tail.

Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instruc-tors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watch-ing me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork or-gods forbid- Dionysus's way with vine plants. Donna told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none. But I got the feeling she was just trying to make me feel better. SHe really didn't know what to make of me either.

Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morn-ing fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connec-tion to my real dad. Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile. I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back...

I started to understand donnas bitterness and how she seemed to resent her father, Hermes. So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, who-ever he was, make a phone appear?

Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Every-body from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Donna would be our instructor.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.

The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in my hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Donna tried his best to fix me up, but she agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Donna announced she would be my partner, since this was my first time. "Good luck," one of the campers told me. "Donnas the best sword fighter in the last three hundred years." "Maybe she'll go easy on me," I said.

The camper snorted.

Donna showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Kim ," she'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!" Whap! "Lunge!" Whap! "Now, back!" Whap!

By the time she called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Donna poured ice water on her head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward. "Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Kim doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo." Great, I thought. Let's all watch Kim get pounded.

The Hermes guys gathered around. They were sup-pressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarm-ing technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

"This is difficult,"s he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Kim, now. Most sword fighters terms have to work years to master this technique."

SHe demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.

"Now in real time," she said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Kim?"

I nodded, and Donna came after me. Somehow, I kept her from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw her attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Donna deflected it eas-ily, but I saw a change in her face. Her eyes narrowed, and she started to press me with more force.

The sword grew heavy in my hand. The balance wasn't right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Donna took me down, so I figured, What the heck?

I tried the disarming maneuver.

My blade hit the base of donnas and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust. Clang.

Donnas sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest. The other campers were silent.

I lowered my sword. "Um, sorry."

For a moment, Donna was too stunned to speak.

"Sorry?" Her scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Kim , why are you sorry? Show me that again!" I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Donna insisted.

This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Donna hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

Donna wiped the sweat off her brow. SHe appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe,"s he said. "But I wonder what Kim could do with a balanced sword... ."

Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Jerry at the lake, rest-ing from a near-death experience on the climbing wall. Jerry had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms.

We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Jerry how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.

His face turned a sickly shade of yellow. "Fine," he said. "Just great."

"So your career's still on track?"

He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"Well... no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask. "He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"

Jerry looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Of course I'd want you along!"

Jerry stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Jerry tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."

"Zeus, Poseidon, Hades."

"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."

"Zeus got the sky," I remembered. "Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld." "Uh-huh."

"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here."

"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Jerry shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."

"But Zeus and Poseidon-they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"

Jerry shifted his hooves uncomfortably. "About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed.

I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make." Jerry nodded.

"And the brothers kept their word-no kids?"

Jerry's face darkened. "Thirteen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo-he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Kat .. . well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."

"But that isn't fair.' It wasn't the little girl's fault."

Jerry hesitated. "Kim, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to tor-ment Kat. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Kat told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Kat made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

I stared at the pine in the distance.

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much. I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

"Jerry," I said, "have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."

"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"

"No. Never. Orpheus came close... . Kim, you're not seriously thinking-"

"No," I lied. "I was just wondering. So ... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Jerry studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."

Jerry looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you were-you know-you'd never ever be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"

I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.

That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.

At last, it was time for capture the flag.

When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as jack and two of his siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.

I turned to Donna and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?" "Yeah."

"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"

"Not always," she said. "But often."

"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do- repaint the flag?"s He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."

"Whose side are we on?"

SHe gave me a sly look, as if she knew something I didn't. The scar on her face made her look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help."

The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded-shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities-in order to win support.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.

"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly cov-ered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.

"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"

Donna looked at me as if I were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here-Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a billion pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.

Jack yelled, "Blue team, forward!"

We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.

I managed to catch up with jack without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."

he kept marching.

"So what's the plan?" I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"

His hand drifted toward his pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear," he said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Donna given you your job?"

"Border patrol, whatever that means."

"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan." he pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.

"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team."

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Jack stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.

Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball.

There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?

Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

Great, I thought. I'll miss all the fun, as usual.

Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.

I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling some-thing was stalking me.

Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreat-ing.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush ex-ploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.

"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed.

Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords-not that that made me feel any better.

They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.

I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid as the Minotaur. They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm went numb, and the air burned.

Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. I fell back.

Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt.

They could've kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.

"Give him a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab his hair."

I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.

"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of this girl. Really scared."

"The flag is that way," I told her. I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn't come out that way.

"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a girl who made our cabin look stupid."

"You do that without my help," I told them. It proba-bly wasn't the smartest thing to say.

Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been shish-ke-babbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.

Seeing my own blood made me dizzy-warm and cold at the same time. "No maiming," I managed to say.

"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privi-lege."

He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash. They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-espresso jelly beans.

Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.

Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.

"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

She probably would've said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stum-bling backward out of the creek.

Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Donna racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fight-ing off the Hephaestus kids. The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.

"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."

They staggered after Donna , but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Donna ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron can-tered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.

The game was over. We'd won.

I was about to join the celebration when jacks voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."

I looked, but he wasn't there.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?"she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Beenie as if he'd just taken it off his head.

I felt myself getting angry. I wasn't even fazed by the fact that he'd just been invisible. "You set me up," I said. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Donna around the flank. You had it all figured out."

Jack shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."

"A plan to get me pulverized."

"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but ..." He shrugged. "You didn't need help."

Then he noticed my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"

"Sword cut," I said. "What do you think?"

"No. It was a sword cut. Look at it."

The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disap-peared.

"I-I don't get it," I said.

Jack was thinking hard. I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Kim."

"What-" "Just do it."

I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but jack steadied me.

"Oh, Styx," he cursed. "This is not good. I didn't want ... I assumed it would be Zeus... ."

Before I could ask what he meant, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.

The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: "Stand ready! My bow!"

Jack drew his sword.

There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.

It was looking straight at me.

Nobody moved except jack, who yelled, "Kim, run!"

He tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over him an enormous shadow with teeth-and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.

By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

"Di immortales!" Jack said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't ... they're not supposed to ..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."

Donna came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"

"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.

We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared. "You're wounded," jack told me. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."

"I'm okay."

"No, you're not," he said. "Chiron, watch this."

I was too tired to argue. I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me. Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped. "Look, I-I don't know why," I said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry..."

But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.

"Kim," jack said, pointing. "Um ..."

By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.

"Your father," jack murmured. "This is really not good."

"It is determined," Chiron announced.

All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.

"My father?" I asked, completely bewildered.

"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."

OHHHH SNAP 3 CHAPTERS IN ONE NIGHT SUPRISE! LOL KIM FOUND OUT WHO HER FATHER WAS!

READ AND REVIEW UPDATING IN A COUPLE OF HOURS!


	8. Chapter 8

8 I AM OFFERED  
A QUEST  
The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.  
I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.  
And I was absolutely miserable.  
Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid- or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood-I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.  
Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the daughter of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.  
The other campers steered clear of me as much as possi-ble. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my les-sons with Donna became one-on-one. Shepushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.  
"You're going to need all the training you can get," she promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."  
Jack still taught me Greek in the mornings, but he seemed distracted. Every time I said something, he scowled at me, as if I'd just poked him between the eyes.  
After lessons, he would walk away muttering to himself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan ..."  
Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.  
I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.  
GIRL AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER FREAK CAR ACCIDENT  
BY EILEEN SMYTHE  
Sally Crawford and daughter Kim are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.  
Mother and daughter had gone for a weekend vacation to , but left hastily, under mysterious circum-stances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing crawfords. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.  
Ms. Crawford husband, Ty Ugliano, claims that his step daughter, Kim Crawford, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.  
Police would not say whether daughter Kim is a suspect in her mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Crawford and Kim . Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.  
The phone number was circled in black marker.  
I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.  
"Lights out," I told myself miserably. That night, I had my worst dream yet.  
I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.  
About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.  
I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.  
Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.  
The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.  
I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!  
The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.  
Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!  
The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and dark-ness swallowed me.  
I woke up, sure I was falling.  
I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.  
I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold. "Come in?"  
Jerry trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you." "Why?"  
"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."  
Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.  
For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a daughter of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I fig-ured it was a crime for me just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict.  
Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Jerry if we needed an umbrella.  
"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."  
I pointed at the storm. "What the heck is that, then?"  
He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."  
I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.  
But this storm ... this one was huge.  
At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal busi-ness, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.  
Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheel-chair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air.  
"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."  
I waited.  
"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to bow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle- Beard is your father."  
A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house. "Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.  
Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Jerry cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.  
"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."  
"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.  
"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Girl wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."  
"Mr. D-" Chiron warned.  
"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the girl is still here when I get back, I'll turn her into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Kimberly Crawford , if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."  
Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.  
He snapped his fingers.  
The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.  
Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Kim, please. And Jerry." We did.  
Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.  
"Tell me, Kim," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"  
Just hearing the name made me shudder.  
Chiron probably wanted me to say, Heck, it was nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast. But I didn't feel like lying.  
"It scared me," I said. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."  
"You'll meet worse, Kim . Far worse, before you're done."  
"Done ... with what?"  
"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"  
I glanced at Jerry, who was crossing his fingers.  
"Um, sir," I said, "you haven't told me what it is yet."  
Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."  
Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.  
"Poseidon and Zeus," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable ... something that was stolen, aren't they?"  
Chiron and Jerry exchanged looks.  
Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"  
My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to jack, and he'd overheard something about a theft. And ... I've also been having these dreams."  
"I knew it," Jerry said. "Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.  
"But it is his quest!" Jerry's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"  
"Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Kim , you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."  
I laughed nervously. "A what?"  
"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylin-der of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."  
"Oh."  
"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other light-ning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."  
"And it's missing?"  
"Stolen," Chiron said.  
"By who?"  
"By whom," Chiron corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. "By you."  
My mouth fell open.  
"At least"-Chiron held up a hand-"that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' Air dis-asters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot take another god's symbol of power directly-that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father con-vinced a human hero to take it."  
"But I didn't-"  
"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly hav-ing the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."  
"But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"  
Chiron and Jerry glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Jerry had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.  
"Er, Kim ...?" Jerry said. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."  
"Perhaps paranoid," Chiron suggested. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam..." He looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight.  
How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god's weapon? I couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Ty's poker party without getting busted. Chiron was waiting for an answer.  
"Something about a golden net?" I guessed. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods ... they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"  
"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threaten-ing war. And now, you've come along-the proverbial last straw."  
"But I'm just a kid!"  
"Kim," Jerry cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"  
"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon-my dad-he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"  
Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Kim?"  
"Bad?" I guessed.  
"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."  
"Bad," I repeated.  
"And you, Kim Crawford, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."  
It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.  
I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.  
"So I have to find the stupid bolt," I said. "And return it to Zeus."  
"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the daughter of Poseidon return Zeus's property?" "If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?"  
"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."  
"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?"  
"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge." I swallowed. "Good reason."  
"You agree then?"  
I looked at Jerry , who nodded encouragingly.  
Easy for him. I was the one Zeus wanted to kill.  
"All right," I said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."  
"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Kim Crawford, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."  
Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap-door.  
I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder fell into place.  
The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes?  
I held my breath and climbed.  
The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things-severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.  
By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trap-door, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.  
I wanted to say, No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bath-room. But I forced myself to take a deep breath.  
The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of grue-some receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely not human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.  
I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"  
The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Ty and his buddies.  
My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.  
Ty turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.  
His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.  
The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: You shall he betrayed by one who calls you a friend.  
Finally, Albert, our building super, delivered the worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.  
The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?"  
The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.  
I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cob-webs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else. My audience with the Oracle was over.  
"Well?" Chiron asked me.  
I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."  
Jerry sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!" "What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron pressed. "This is important."  
My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She . .. she said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."  
"I knew it," Jerry said.  
Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"  
I didn't want to tell him.  
What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many.  
And the last line-I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me, Oh, by the way, you'll fail  
How could I confess that? "No," I said. "That's about it."  
He studied my face. "Very well, Kim. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."  
I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better. "Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"  
"Ah, think, Kim," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"  
"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.  
"Yes, quite. Someone who holds a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided forever ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."  
I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spo-ken from under the ground. "Hades."  
Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."  
A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Jerry's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"  
"A Fury came after Kim," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young lady until she was sure of her identity, then tried to kill her. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."  
"Yes, but-but Hades hates all heroes," Jerry protested. "Especially if he has found out Kim is a daughter of Poseidon... ."  
"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Pun-ishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Kim to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before she can take on the quest."  
"Great," I muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me."  
"But a quest to ..." Jerry swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."  
"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Kim must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."  
A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.  
I was ready to take him on.  
Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld ...  
Whoa, girl, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god. Jerry was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.  
The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? This was suicide.  
"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."  
"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades- and I imagine Poseidon does-they couldn't retrieve the bolt them-selves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"  
"You're saying I'm being used."  
"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you."  
My dad needs me.  
Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for 13 years. Now suddenly he needed me.  
I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's daughter all along, haven't you?"  
"I had my suspicions. As I said ... I've spoken to the Oracle, too."  
I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too.  
"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."  
"Check," Chiron said.  
"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."  
"Check."  
"And get it back to Olympus before the summer sol-stice, in ten days."  
"That's about right."  
I looked at Jerry, who gulped down the ace of hearts.  
"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.  
"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you."  
"Oh ..." He shifted his hooves.  
"No ... it's just that satyrs and underground places ... well..."  
He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shred-ded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Kim . If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."  
I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, though I didn't think that would be very heroic. Jerry was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me.  
"All the way, Swagmaster ." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."  
"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."  
"Where?"  
Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."  
"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane-"  
"No!" Jerry shrieked. "Kim, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"  
I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.  
"Kim, think," Chiron said.  
"You are the daughter of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."  
Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.  
"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll travel overland."  
"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Jerry is one. The other has already vol-unteered, if you will accept his help."  
"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?" The air shimmered behind Chiron.  
Jack became visible, stuffing his Beenie into his back pocket.  
"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain," he said. " Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."  
"If you do say so yourself," I said. "I suppose you have a plan, wise guy?" His cheeks colored. "Do you want my help or not?"  
The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get.  
"A trio," I said. "That'll work."  
"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."  
Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.  
"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."  
YAY CHAPTER 8 is DONEEE THIS IS GONNA E ONE LONG STORY.


	9. Chapter 9

**9 I RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD BUS.**

It didn't take me long to pack. I decided to leave the Mino-taur horn in my cabin, which left me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Jerry had found for me.

The camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mor-tal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions-whatever that meant. He gave jack and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.

Jack was bringing his magic Beenie , which he told me had been a twelfth-birthday present from his mom. He carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when he got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in his shirt sleeve. I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector.

Jerry wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.

We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Kat, daughter of Zeus.

Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the surfer girl I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Jerry , the girl was the camp's head of security. She supposedly had eyes all over her body so she could never be surprised. Today, though, she was wear-ing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on her hands, face and neck.

"This is Argus," Chiron told me. "SHe will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things." I heard footsteps behind us.

Donna came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes.

"Hey!" She panted. "Glad I caught you.

"Just wanted to say good luck," Donna told me. "And I thought ... um, maybe you could use these."

SHe handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal.

Donna said, "Maia!"

White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.

"SwAwesome!" Jerry said.

We all looked at him.

"It's a mix, of sweet and awesome." Jerry said. We all nodded

Donna smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days..." Her expression turned sad.

I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Donna had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid she might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days. But here she was giving me a magic gift...

"Hey, girl," I said. "Thanks."

"Listen, Kim ..." Donna looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"

We shook hands. Donna patted Jerry's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to jack.

After Donna was gone, I told hi,, "You're hyperventilating."

"Am not."

"You let her capture the flag instead of you, didn't you?"

"Oh ... why do I want to go anywhere with you, Kim ?"

He stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus fol-lowed, jingling his car keys.

I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"

He shook his head. "Donna meant well, Kim. But taking to the air ... that would not be wise"

I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Jerry . You want a magic item?" His eyes lit up. "Me?"

Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch.

"Maia!" he shouted.

He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.

"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"

"Aaaaa!" Jerry went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.

Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. "I should have trained you better, Kim ," he said. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason-they all got more training."

"That's okay. I just wish-"

I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as donnas flying shoes, or jacks invisible cap.

"What am I thinking?" Chiron cried. "I can't let you get away without this."

He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost thirty cents.

"Gee," I said. "Thanks."

"Kim, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."

I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be ... ?

I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.

"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "Its name is Anaklusmos."

"'Riptide,'" I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.

"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."

I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals? How could it not?"

"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill. And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are twice as vulnerable."

"Good to know." "Now recap the pen."

I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I tucked it in my pocket, a little nervous, because I was famous for losing pens at school.

"You can't," Chiron said.

"Can't what?"

"Lose the pen," he said. "It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it."

I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass. "It may take a few moments," Chiron told me. "Now check your pocket."

Sure enough, the pen was there.

"Okay, that's extremely cool," I admitted. "But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?" Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Kim."

"Mist?"

"Yes. Read The Iliad. It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mor-tal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."

I put Riptide back in my pocket.

For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. I was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

"Chiron ..." I said. "When you say the gods are immor-tal... I mean, there was a time before them, right?"

"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."

"So what was it like ... before the gods?"

Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appe-tizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."

"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So ... even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up every-thing, right?"

Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. They still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure end-less pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."

"Our destiny ... assuming we know what that is."

"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."

"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed."

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Kat, daughter of Zeus, Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur.

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, jack and Jerry sitting next to me as if we were nor-mal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall.

"So far so good," I told jack. "Ten miles and not a single monster."

He gave me an irritated look. "It's bad luck to talk that way, seaweed brain." "Remind me again-why do you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you."

"Could've fooled me."

He folded his Beenie of invisibility. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."

"Why?"

He sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."

"They must really like olives."

"Oh, forget it."

"Now, if she'd invented pizza-that I could understand." "I said, forget it!"

In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.

Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain.

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Ty's apart-ment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

I ripped it down before jack and Jerry could notice.

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.

I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Ty was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.

Jerry shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Kim ?"

I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or some-thing?"

"Just your emotions." He shrugged. "Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"

I nodded, wondering what else Jerry might've forgotten to tell me.

"Your mom married Ty for you," Jerry told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura... Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."

"Thanks," I said. "Where's the nearest shower?"

"You should be grateful, Kim . Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Ty has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy-if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it. I'll see her again, I thought. She isn't gone.

I wondered if Jerry could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were. I was glad he and jack were with me, but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.

The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble. The more I thought about it, I resented Poseidon for never visiting me, never helping my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check. He'd only claimed me because he needed a job done.

All I cared about was my mom. Hades had taken her unfairly, and Hades was going to give her back.

You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, the Oracle whispered in my mind. You will fail to save what matters most in the end.

Shut up, I told it.

The rain kept coming down.

We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Jerry's apples. Jack was unbelievable. He could bounce the apple off his knee, his elbow, his shoulder, whatever. I wasn't too bad myself.

The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Jerry and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared-core, stem, and all.

Jerry blushed. He tried to apologize, but jack and I were too busy cracking up.

Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Jerry started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy-enchiladas.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."

But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too.

I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our back-packs. Jack kept slapping his Beenie nervously against his thigh.

As the last passengers got on, I clampedmy hand onto jacks knee ."Jack."

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crum-pled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered.

It was Joan . Older, more withered, but defin-itely the same evil face. I scrunched down in my seat.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Joan -same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.

The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. "She didn't stay dead long," I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."

"I said if you're lucky," jack said. "You're obvi-ously not." "All three of them," Jerry whimpered. "Di immortales!"

"It's okay," jack said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the underworld . No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."

"They don't open," Jerry moaned. "A back exit?" He suggested.

There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, head-ing for the Lincoln Tunnel.

"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"

"Mortals don't have good eyes," jack reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."

"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?"

He thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?"

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

Joan got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room."

"So do I," said the second sister.

"So do I," said the third sister.

They all started coming down the aisle.

"I've got it," jack said. "Kim, take my Beenie."

"What?"

"You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."

"But you guys-"

"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," jack said. "You're a daughter of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering."

"I can't just leave you."

"Don't worry about us," Jerry said. "Go!"

My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Beenie and put it on.

When I looked down, my body wasn't there anymore.

I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past.

Joan stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding. Apparently she didn't see anything. She and her sisters kept going.

I was free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wail-ing from the back row.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same-I guess those couldn't get any uglier- but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bod-ies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

The Furies surrounded Jerry and jack , lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw something, all right. "She's not here!" Jack yelled. "She's gone!"

The Furies raised their whips.

Jack drew his bronze knife. Jerry grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it. What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should've been named ADHD poster child of the year. The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.

Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.

"Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey-whoa!"

We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.

We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.

Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.

Another great idea: I hit the emergency brake.

The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver's seat and let them pass.

The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at jack while he waved his knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Jerry threw tin cans.

I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go, but I couldn't leave my friends. I took off the invisible hat. "Hey!"

The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly seemed like an excellent idea. Joan stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my F- math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather.

Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.

"Kimberly Crawford ," Joan said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."

"I liked you better as a math teacher," I told her.

She growled.

Jack and Jerry moved up behind the Furies cau-tiously, looking for an opening.

I took the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and un-capped it. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double- edged sword.

The Furies hesitated.

Joan had felt Riptide's blade before. She obvi-ously didn't like seeing it again.

"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."

"Nice try," I told her.

"Kim, look out!" Jack cried.

Joan lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.

My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Jack got Joan in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Jerry ripped the whip out of her hands.

"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"

The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a piñata.

Joan was trying to get jack off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but jack held on while Jerry got Joan legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Joan tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"

"Braccas meas vescimini!" I yelled.

I wasn't sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant "Eat my pants!" Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

"Get out!" Jack yelled at me. "Now!" I didn't need any encouragement.

We rushed outside and found the other passengers wan-dering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!" A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap my sword.

"Our bags!" Jerry realized. "We left our-" BOOOOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Joan was not yet dead.

"Run!" Jack said. "She's calling for reinforce-ments! We have to get out of here!"

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

GOOD OR BAD REVIEEEEW


	10. Chapter 10

10 WE VISIT THE GARDEN GNOME EMPORIUM  
In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.  
So there we were, jack and Jerry and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.  
Jerry was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."  
I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But jack kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."  
"All our money was back there," I reminded him. "Our food and clothes. Everything." "Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight-"  
"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"  
"You didn't need to protect me, Kim . I would've been fine."  
"Sliced like sandwich bread," Jerry put in, "but fine."  
"Shut up, goat boy," said jack.  
"Sorry jack if you- I mean if either of you died I couldn't live with my self" I said  
Jerry brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."  
We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.  
After a few minutes, jack fell into line next to me. "Look, I..." His voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."  
"We're a team, right?"  
He was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died ... aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."  
The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of jack except a glint of his eyes.  
"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" I asked him.. "No ... only short field trips. My dad-"  
"The history professor."  
"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home." He was rushing his words out now, as if he were afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."  
If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in his voice. "You're pretty good with that knife," I said.  
"You think so?"  
"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."  
I couldn't really see, but I thought he might've smiled.  
"You know," he said, "maybe I should tell you ... Something funny back on the bus ..."  
Whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.  
"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Jerry cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"  
He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.  
Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head. Add to the list of superpowers I did not have: infrared vision.  
After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This girl needed a double cheeseburger.  
We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed- down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.  
It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamin-gos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, sur-rounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.  
To me, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.  
"What the heck does that say?" I asked.  
"I don't know," jack said.  
He loved reading so much, I'd forgotten he was dyslexic, too.  
Jerry translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."  
Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and wav-ing, as if they were about to get their picture taken.  
I crossed the street, following the smell of the ham-burgers. "Hey ..." Jerry warned.  
"The lights are on inside," jack said. "Maybe it's open." "Snack bar," I said wistfully.  
"Snack bar," he agreed.  
"Are you two crazy?" Jerry said. "This place is weird."  
We ignored him.  
The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Jerry the creeps.  
"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"  
We stopped at the warehouse door.  
"Don't knock," Jerry pleaded. "I smell monsters."  
"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," jack told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?" "Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."  
"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.  
"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These stat-ues are ... looking at me."  
Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman-at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that cov-ered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.  
Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"  
"They're ... um ..." Jack started to say.  
"We're orphans," I said.  
"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"  
"We got separated from our caravan," I said. "Our cir-cus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"  
"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."  
We thanked her and went inside.  
Jack muttered to me, "Circus caravan?" "Always have a strategy, right?"  
"Your head is full of kelp."  
The warehouse was filled with more statues-people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with dif-ferent expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.  
Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the den-tist's chair-it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Jerry's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.  
All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.  
"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.  
"Awesome," I said.  
"Um," Jerry said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."  
Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."  
"Thank you, ma'am," jack said.  
Aunty Em stiffened, as if jack had done some-thing wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.  
"Quite all right, jack ," she said. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." Only later did I wonder how she knew jacks name, even though we had never intro-duced ourselves.  
Our hostess disappeared to the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.  
I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.  
Jack slurped his shake.  
Jerry picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.  
"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.  
I listened, but didn't hear anything. Jack shook his head.  
"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Jerry ." "I take vitamins. For my ears."  
"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."  
Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her head-dress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, hav-ing someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our hostess.  
"So, you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.  
"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."  
"A lot of business on this road?"  
"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."  
My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even ter-rified.  
"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."  
"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.  
"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.  
Jack had stopped eating. He sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"  
"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for chil-dren, really. You see, jack, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."  
I wasn't sure what she meant, but I felt bad for her. My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice?  
"Kim?" Jack was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean, the ringmaster will be wait-ing."  
He sounded tense. I wasn't sure why. Jerry was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.  
"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told jack again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."  
She reached out as if to stroke jacks cheek, but jack stood up abruptly.  
"We really should go."  
"Yes!" Jerry swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"  
I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice. I wanted to stay with her a while.  
"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"  
"A pose?" Jack asked warily.  
"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves chil-dren."  
Jack shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Kim -"  
"Sure we can," I said. I was irritated with jack for being so bossy, so rude to an old lady who'd just fed us for free. "It's just a photo, jack. What's the harm?"  
"Yes, jack," the woman purred. "No harm."  
I could tell jack didn't like it, but she allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.  
Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gen-tlemen on either side."  
"Not much light for a photo," I remarked.  
"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"  
"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.  
Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"  
Jerry glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."  
"Jerry," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear." She still had no camera in her hands.  
"Kim-" jack said.  
Some instinct warned me to listen to jack , but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.  
"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..." "Kim, something's wrong," jack insisted.  
"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"  
"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Jerry gasped.  
"Look away from her!" Jack shouted. He whipped hi Beenie onto his head and vanished. His invisible hands pushed Jerry and me both off the bench.  
I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet.  
I could hear Jerry scrambling off in one direction, jack in another. But I was too dazed to move.  
Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.  
I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left jack screamed, "No! Don't!"  
More rasping-the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from ... from about where Aunty Em's head would be.  
"Run!" Jerry bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.  
I couldn't move. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.  
"Such a pity to destroy a gorgeous young face," she told me soothingly. "Stay with me, Kim . All you have to do is look up."  
I fought the urge to obey. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens- a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.  
Aunty Em.  
Aunty "M."  
How could I have been so stupid?  
Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?  
But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by , Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.  
"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Kim ," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Jacks mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."  
"Don't listen to her!" Jacks voice shouted, some-where in the statuary. "Run, Kim !"  
"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the boy, Kim . She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Kim , you need not suffer."  
"No," I muttered. I tried to make my legs move.  
"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Kim ? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."  
"Kim !" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Jerry yelled, "Duck!"  
I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Jerry , holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.  
"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"  
That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Jerry , I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me. I dove to one side.  
Thwack!  
At first I figured it was the sound of Jerry hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.  
"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"  
"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Jerry yelled back.  
I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Jerry swooped down for another pass. Ker-whack!  
"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spit-ting.  
Right next to me, jacks voice said, "Kim !"  
I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!" Jack took off his Beenie and became visible. 'You have to cut her head off." "What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here."  
"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but..." Jack swallowed, as if he were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got the better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You-you've got a chance."  
"What? I can't-"  
"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"  
He pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.  
Jack grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." He studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distor-tion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of-"  
"Would you speak English?"  
"I am!" He tossed me the glass ball. "Just look at her in the glass. Never look at her directly."  
"Hey, guys!" Jerry yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"  
"Roooaaarrr!"  
"Maybe not," Jerry corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.  
"Hurry," jack told me. "Jerry's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."  
I took out my pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand.  
I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.  
I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.  
Jerry was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"  
Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Hey!"  
I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defend-ing myself.  
But she let me approach-twenty feet, ten feet.  
I could see the reflection of her face now. Surely it wasn't really that ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.  
"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Kim ," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."  
I hesitated, fascinated by the face I saw reflected in the glass-the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.  
From the cement grizzly, Jerry moaned, "Kim , don't listen to her!"  
Medusa cackled. "Too late."  
She lunged at me with her talons.  
I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern-the sound of a monster disintegrating.  
Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.  
"Oh, yuck," Jerry said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."  
Jack came up next to me, his eyes fixed on the sky. He was holding Medusa's black veil. He said, "Don't move."  
Very, very carefully, without looking down, he knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.  
"Are you okay?" He asked me, his voice trembling.  
"Yeah," I decided, though I felt like throwing up my double cheeseburger. "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"  
"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," he said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."  
Jerry moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.  
"The Red Baron," I said. "Good job, man."  
He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."  
He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the ware-house.  
We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.  
Finally I said, "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"  
Jack flashed me an irritated look. "Your dad, actu-ally. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girl-friend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."  
My face was burning. "Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."  
Jack straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, he said: "'It's just a photo, jack . What's the harm?'"  
"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."  
"You're insufferable."  
"You're-"  
"Hey!" Jerry interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even get migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"  
I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!  
I was angry, not just with jack or his mom, but with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.  
What had Medusa said?  
Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. I got up. "I'll be back."  
"Kim," jack called after me. "What are you-"  
I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.  
In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.  
I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip: The Gods  
Mount Olympus  
600th Floor,  
Empire State Building New York, NY  
With best wishes,  
Kim Crawford  
"They're not going to like that," Jerry warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."  
I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!  
"I am impertinent," I said.  
I looked at jack, daring him to criticize.  
He didn't. He seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," he mut-tered. "We need a new plan."

REVIIIIIIIIIEEEEW


	11. Chapter 11

**11 WE GET ADVICE FROM A POODLE**

We were pretty miserable that night.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obvi-ously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. We didn't want to attract anything else.

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch.

Jack curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as his head hit the ground. Jerry fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Kim."

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stu-pid quest?"

"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist."

He glared at me. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast ... ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, tem-porarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rain-water, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never known.

"Tell me about the search," I said.

Jerry looked at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was just making fun.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher."

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand ... the statue you saw back there-"

"Oh, right, sorry."

Jerry shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"Hang on-the first?"

Jerry took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disap-pear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?" "None."

"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?"

"I have to believe that, Kim . Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Jerry could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better?

"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? Jack was telling me-"

"Oh, I forgot. Jack will have a plan all figured out."

"Don't be so hard on him, Kim he's had a tough life, but he's a good person. After all, he forgave me..." His voice faltered.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Forgave you for what?"

Suddenly, Jerry seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your first keeper job was five years ago. Jack has been at camp five years. He wasn't ... I mean, your first assignment that went wrong-"

"I can't talk about it," jerry said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he'd start crying if I pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's, jack and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest. Some-thing isn't as it seems."

"Well, duh. I'm getting blamed for stealing a thunder-bolt that Hades took."

"That's not what I mean," Jerry said. "The Fur-The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Joan at swath more Academy ... why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

"They seemed plenty aggressive to me."

Jerry shook his head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"

"Asking about me," I said.

"Maybe ... but jack and I, we both got the feel-ing they weren't asking about a person. They said 'Where is it?' They seemed to be asking about an object."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt..." He looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.

I thought about what Medusa had said: I was being used by the gods. What lay ahead of me was worse than petrifi-cation. "I haven't been straight with you," 1 told Jerry . "I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."

Jerry blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Kim . But are you sure that's the only reason ?" "I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him."

Jerry gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Kim , I'm not as smart as jack. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done."

"Yeah? Well maybe satyr emotions work differently than human emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks."

Jerry pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Kim . Whatever."

"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about. We barely got out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west."

Jerry looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem. "How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."

I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, I was asleep.

In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that some-thing was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

The little hero, an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. Too weak, too young, but perhaps you will do.

The voice felt ancient-cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead. They have misled you, girl, it said. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: Go!

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work.

Cold laughter echoed from the chasm.

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

Help me rise, girl . The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, No! Wake!

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me. I realized it wasn't interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself out.

Good, it murmured. Good.

Wake! the dead whispered. Wake!

Someone was shaking me.

My eyes opened, and it was daylight.

"Well," jack said, "looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake ."

I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around my chest.

"Hey are you okay?" Jack asked.

"Yeah I'm fine just...bad dreams...How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast." Jack tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Jerry went exploring. Look, he found a friend."

My eyes had trouble focusing.

Jerry was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.

No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.

The poodle yapped at me suspiciously. Jerry said, "No, she's not." I blinked. "Are you ... talking to that thing?

"The poodle growled.

"This thing," Jerry warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."

"You can talk to animals?"

Jerry ignored the question. "Kim , meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Kim ."

I stared at jack , figuring he'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on me, but she looked deadly serious.

"I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle," I said. "For-get it."

"Kim," jack said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle." The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle.

Jerry explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Jerry .

"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" I asked. "He read the signs," Jerry said. "Duh."

"Of course," I said. "Silly me."

"So we turn in Gladiola," jack explained in his best strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple."

I thought about my dream-the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and my mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be wait-ing for me in the West.

"Not another bus," I said warily. "No," jack agreed.

He pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak sta-tion half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the west-bound train leaves at noon."

OKAY SO IM SORRY IF I ACCIDENTLY SAY PECRY OR GROVER OR OTHER PJ NAMES ITS JUST HARD NOT TO WRITING A STORY WITH THIS THEME. MY APOLIGIES!


	12. Chapter 12

12I PLUNGE TO MY DEATH

We spent two days on the Amtrak train, heading west through hills, over rivers, past amber waves of grain.

We weren't attacked once, but I didn't relax. I felt that we were traveling around in a display case, being watched from above and maybe from below, that something was waiting for the right opportunity.

I tried to keep a low profile because my name and pic-ture were splattered over the front pages of several East Coast newspapers. The Trenton Register-News showed a photo taken by a tourist as I got off the Greyhound bus. I had a wild look in my eyes. My sword was a metallic blur in my hands. It might've been a baseball bat or a lacrosse stick.

The picture's caption read:

Thirteen -year-old Kim Crawford , wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of her mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where she accosted several elderly female passengers. The bus exploded on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after Crawford fled the scene. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the girl may be traveling with two teenage accomplices. Her stepfather, Ty Ugliano, has offered a cash reward for information leading to her capture.

"Don't worry," jack told me. "Mortal police could never find us." But he didn't sound so sure.

The rest of the day I spent alternately pacing the length of the train (because I had a really hard time sitting still) or looking out the windows.

Once, I spotted a family of centaurs galloping across a wheat field, bows at the ready, as they hunted lunch. The little boy centaur, who was the size of a second-grader on a pony, caught my eye and waved. I looked around the passenger car, but nobody else had noticed. The adult riders all had their faces buried in laptop computers or magazines.

Another time, toward evening, I saw something huge moving through the woods. I could've sworn it was a lion, except that lions don't live wild in America, and this thing was the size of a Hummer. Its fur glinted gold in the evening light. Then it leaped through the trees and was gone.

Our reward money for returning Gladiola the poodle had only been enough to purchase tickets as far as Denver. We couldn't get berths in the sleeper car, so we dozed in our seats. My neck got stiff. I tried not to drool in my sleep, since jack was sitting right next to me.

Jerry kept snoring and bleating and waking me up. Once, he shuffled around and his fake foot fell off. Jack and I had to stick it back on before any of the other passengers noticed.

"So," jack asked me, once we'd gotten Jerry's sneaker readjusted.

"Who wants your help?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you were asleep just now, you mumbled, 'I won't help you.' Who were you dreaming about?"

I was reluctant to say anything. It was the second time I'd dreamed about the evil voice from the pit. But it bothered me so much I finally told him..

Jack was quiet for a long time. "That doesn't sound like Hades. He always appears on a black throne, and he never laughs."

"He offered my mother in trade. Who else could do that?"

"I guess ... if he meant, 'Help me rise from the Underworld.' If he wants war with the Olympians. But why ask you to bring him the master bolt if he already has it?"

I shook my head, wishing I knew the answer. I thought about what Jerry had told me, that the Furies on the bus seemed to have been looking for something.

Where is it? Where?

Maybe Jerry sensed my emotions. He snorted in his sleep, muttered something about vegetables, and turned his head.

Jerry readjusted his cap so it covered his horns. "Kim, you can't barter with Hades. You know that, right? He's deceitful, heartless, and greedy. I don't care if his Kindly Ones weren't as aggressive this time- "

"This time?" I asked. "You mean you've run into them before?"

His hand crept up to his necklace. He fingered a glazed white bead painted with the image of a pine tree, one of his clay end-of-summer tokens. "Let's just say I've got no love for the Lord of the Dead. You can't be tempted to make a deal for your mom."

"What would you do if it was your dad?" "That's easy," he said. "I'd leave him to rot." "You're not serious?"

Jacks gray eyes fixed on me. He wore the same expression he'd worn in the woods at camp, the moment he drew his sword against the hellhound. "My dad's resented me since the day I was born, Kim," he said. "He never wanted a baby. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with his work. She wasn't happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent."

"But how ... I mean, I guess you weren't born in a hospital..."

"I appeared on my father's doorstep, in a golden cradle, carried down from Olympus by Zephyr the West Wind. You'd think my dad would remember that as a miracle, right? Like, maybe he'd take some digital photos or some-thing. But he always talked about my arrival as if it were the most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to him. When I was five he got married and totally forgot about Athena. He got a 'regular' mortal wife, and had two 'regu-lar' mortal kids, and tried to pretend I didn't exist."

I stared out the train window. The lights of a sleeping town were drifting by. I wanted to make jack feel better, but I didn't know how.

"My mom married a really awful guy," I told him . "Jerry said she did it to protect me, to hide me in the scent of a human family. Maybe that's what your dad was thinking."

Jack kept worrying at his necklace. He was pinching the gold college ring that hung with the beads. It occurred to me that the ring must be his father's. I wondered why he wore it if he hated him so much.

"He doesn't care about me," he said. "His wife-my stepmom-treated me like a freak. She wouldn't let me play with her children. My dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened-you know, something with monsters-they would both look at me resentfully, like, 'How dare you put our family at risk.' Finally, I took the hint. I wasn't wanted. I ran away."

"How old were you?"

"Same age as when I started camp. Seven."

"But ... you couldn't have gotten all the way to Half-Blood Hill by yourself."

"Not alone, no. Athena watched over me, guided me toward help. I made a couple of unexpected friends who took care of me, for a short time, anyway."

I wanted to ask what happened, but jack seemed lost in sad memories. So I listened to the sound of Jerry snoring and gazed out the train windows as the dark fields of Ohio raced by.

Toward the end of our second day on the train, June 13, eight days before the summer solstice, we passed through some golden hills and over the Mississippi River into St. Louis. Jack craned his neck to see the Gateway Arch, which looked to me like a huge shopping bag handle stuck on the city.

"I want to do that," he sighed.

"What?" I asked.

"Build something like that. You ever see the Parthenon, Kim ?"

"Only in pictures."

"Someday, I'm going to see it in person. I'm going to build the greatest monument to the gods, ever. Something that'll last a thousand years."

I laughed. "You? An architect?"

I don't know why, but I found it funny. Just the idea of jack trying to sit quietly and draw all day.

His cheeks flushed. "Yes, an architect. Athena expects her children to create things, not tear them down, like a certain god of earthquakes I could mention."

I watched the churning brown water of the Mississippi below.

"Sorry," jack said. "That was mean."

"Can't we work together a little?" I pleaded. "I mean, didn't Athena and Poseidon ever cooperate?"

Jack had to think about it. "I guess ... the chariot," she said tentatively. "My mom invented it, but Poseidon created horses out of the crests of waves. So they had to work together to make it complete."

"Then we can cooperate, too. Right?"

We rode into the city, jack watching as the Arch disappeared behind a hotel.

"I suppose," he said at last.

We pulled into the Amtrak station downtown. The intercom told us we'd have a three-hour layover before departing for Denver.

Jerry stretched. Before he was even fully awake, he said, "Food."

"Come on, goat boy," jack said. "Sightseeing."

"Sightseeing?"

"The Gateway Arch," he said. "This may be my only chance to ride to the top. Are you coming or not?"

Jerry and I exchanged looks.

I wanted to say no, but I figured that if jack was going, we couldn't very well let him go alone. Jerry shrugged. "As long as there's a snack bar with-out monsters."

The Arch was about a mile from the train station. Late in the day the lines to get in weren't that long. We threaded our way through the underground museum, looking at covered wagons and other junk from the 1800s. It wasn't all that thrilling, but jack kept telling us interesting facts about how the Arch was built, and Jerry kept passing me jelly beans, so I was okay.

I kept looking around, though, at the other people in line. "You smell anything?" I murmured to Jerry .

He took his nose out of the jelly-bean bag long enough to sniff. "Underground," he said distastefully. "Under-ground air always smells like monsters. Probably doesn't mean anything."

But something felt wrong to me. I had a feeling we shouldn't be here. "Guys," I said. "You know the gods' symbols of power?"

Jack had been in the middle of reading about the construction equipment used to build the Arch, but he looked over. "Yeah?"

"Well, Hade-"

Jerry cleared his throat. "We're in a public place... You mean, our friend downstairs?"

"Um, right," I said. "Our friend way downstairs. Doesn't he have a hat like jacks ?"

"You mean the Helm of Darkness," jack said. "Yeah, that's his symbol of power. I saw it next to his seat during the winter solstice council meeting."

"He was there?" I asked.

He nodded. "It's the only time he's allowed to visit Olympus-the darkest day of the year. But his helm is a lot more powerful than my invisibility hat, if what I've heard is true..."

"It allows him to become darkness," Jerry confirmed. "He can melt into shadow or pass through walls. He can't be touched, or seen, or heard. And he can radiate fear so intense it can drive you insane or stop your heart. Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?"

"But then ... how do we know he's not here right now, watching us?" I asked.

Jack and Jerry exchanged looks.

"We don't," Jerry said.

"Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better," I said. "Got any blue jelly beans left?"

I'd almost mastered my jumpy nerves when I saw the tiny little elevator car we were going to ride to the top of the Arch, and I knew I was in trouble. I hate confined places. They make me nuts.

We got shoehorned into the car with this big fat lady and her dog, a Chihuahua with a rhinestone collar. I figured maybe the dog was a seeing-eye Chihuahua, because none of the guards said a word about it.

We started going up, inside the Arch. I'd never been in an elevator that went in a curve, and my stomach wasn't too happy about it.

"No parents?" the fat lady asked us.

She had beady eyes; pointy, coffee-stained teeth; a floppy denim hat, and a denim dress that bulged so much, she looked like a blue-jean blimp.

"They're below," jack told her. "Scared of heights." "Oh, the poor darlings."

The Chihuahua growled. The woman said, "Now, now, sonny. Behave." The dog had beady eyes like its owner, intelligent and vicious.

I said, "Sonny. Is that his name?"

"No," the lady told me.

She smiled, as if that cleared everything up.

At the top of the Arch, the observation deck reminded me of a tin can with carpeting. Rows of tiny windows looked out over the city on one side and the river on the other. The view was okay, but if there's anything I like less than a confined space, it's a confined space six hundred feet in the air. I was ready to go pretty quick.

Jack kept talking about structural supports, and how he would've made the windows bigger, and designed a see-through floor. He probably could've stayed up there for hours, but luckily for me the park ranger announced that the observation deck would be closing in a few minutes.

I steered jerry and jack toward the exit, loaded them into the elevator, and I was about to get in myself when I realized there were already two other tourists inside. No room for me.

The park ranger said, "Next car, sir."

"We'll get out," jack said. "We'll wait with you."

But that was going to mess everybody up and take even more time, so I said, "Naw, it's okay. I'll see you guys at the bottom."

Jerry and jack both looked nervous, but they let the elevator door slide shut. Their car disappeared down the ramp.

Now the only people left on the observation deck were me, a little boy with his parents, the park ranger, and the fat lady with her Chihuahua.

I smiled uneasily at the fat lady. She smiled back, her forked tongue flickering between her teeth.

Wait a minute.

Forked tongue?

Before I could decide if I'd really seen that, her Chihuahua jumped down and started yapping at me. "Now, now, sonny," the lady said. "Does this look like a good time? We have all these nice people here."

"Doggie!" said the little boy. "Look, a doggie!"

His parents pulled him back.

The Chihuahua bared his teeth at me, foam dripping from his black lips.

"Well, son," the fat lady sighed. "If you insist."

Ice started forming in my stomach. "Um, did you just call that Chihuahua your son?"

"Chimera, dear," the fat lady corrected. "Not a Chihuahua. It's an easy mistake to make."

She rolled up her denim sleeves, revealing that the skin of her arms was scaly and green. When she smiled, I saw that her teeth were fangs. The pupils of her eyes were side-ways slits, like a reptile's.

The Chihuahua barked louder, and with each bark, it grew. First to the size of a Doberman, then to a lion. The bark became a roar.

The little boy screamed. His parents pulled him back toward the exit, straight into the park ranger, who stood, paralyzed, gaping at the monster.

The Chimera was now so tall its back rubbed against the roof. It had the head of a lion with a blood- caked mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail, a ten-foot-long diamondback growing right out of its shaggy behind. The rhinestone dog collar still hung around its neck, and the plate-sized dog tag was now easy to read: CHIMERA-RABID, FIRE-BREATHING, POISONOUS-IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL TARTARUS-EXT. 954.

I realized I hadn't even uncapped my sword. My hands were numb. I was ten feet away from the Chimera's bloody maw, and I knew that as soon as I moved, the creature would lunge.

The snake lady made a hissing noise that might've been laughter. "Be honored, Kim Crawford . Lord Zeus rarely allows me to test a hero with one of my brood. For I am the Mother of Monsters, the terrible Echidna!"

I stared at her. All I could think to say was: "Isn't that a kind of anteater?"

She howled, her reptilian face turning brown and green with rage. "I hate it when people say that! I hate Australia! Naming that ridiculous animal after me. For that, kim Crawford , my son shall destroy you!"

The Chimera charged, its lion teeth gnashing. I man-aged to leap aside and dodge the bite.

I ended up next to the family and the park ranger, who were all screaming now, trying to pry open the emergency exit doors.

I couldn't let them get hurt. I uncapped my sword, ran to the other side of the deck, and yelled, "Hey, Chihuahua!" The Chimera turned faster than I would've thought possible.

Before I could swing my sword, it opened its mouth, emitting a stench like the world's largest barbecue pit, and shot a column of flame straight at me.

I dove through the explosion. The carpet burst into flames; the heat was so intense, it nearly seared off my eye-brows.

Where I had been standing a moment before was a ragged hole in the side of the Arch, with melted metal steaming around the edges.

Great, I thought. We just blowtorched a national mon-ument.

Riptide was now a shining bronze blade in my hands, and as the Chimera turned, I slashed at its neck.

That was my fatal mistake. The blade sparked harm-lessly off the dog collar. I tried to regain my balance, but I was so worried about defending myself against the fiery lion's mouth, I completely forgot about the serpent tail until it whipped around and sank its fangs into my calf.

My whole leg was on fire. I tried to jab Riptide into the Chimera's mouth, but the serpent tail wrapped around my ankles and pulled me off balance, and my blade flew out of my hand, spinning out of the hole in the Arch and down toward the Mississippi River.

I managed to get to my feet, but I knew I had lost. I was weaponless. I could feel deadly poison racing up to my chest. I remembered Chiron saying that Anaklusmos would always return to me, but there was no pen in my pocket. Maybe it had fallen too far away. Maybe it only returned when it was in pen form. I didn't know, and I wasn't going to live long enough to figure it out.

I backed into the hole in the wall. The Chimera advanced, growling, smoke curling from its lips. The snake lady, Echidna, cackled. "They don't make heroes like they used to, eh, kid?"

The monster growled. It seemed in no hurry to finish me off now that I was beaten.

I glanced at the park ranger and the family. The little boy was hiding behind his father's legs. I had to protect these people. I couldn't just ... die. I tried to think, but my whole body was on fire. My head felt dizzy. I had no sword. I was facing a massive, fire-breathing monster and its mother. And I was scared.

There was no place else to go, so I stepped to the edge of the hole. Far, far below, the river glittered. If I died, would the monsters go away? Would they leave the humans alone?

"If you are the daughter of Poseidon," Echidna hissed, "you would not fear water. Jump, Kim Crawford . Show me that water will not harm you. Jump and retrieve your sword. Prove your bloodline."

Yeah, right, I thought. I'd read somewhere that jumping into water from a couple of stories up was like jumping onto solid asphalt. From here, I'd splatter on impact.

The Chimera's mouth glowed red, heating up for an-other blast.

"You have no faith," Echidna told me. "You do not trust the gods. I cannot blame you, little coward. Better you die now. The gods are faithless. The poison is in your heart."

She was right: I was dying. I could feel my breath slow-ing down. Nobody could save me, not even the gods.

I backed up and looked down at the water. I remem-bered the warm glow of my father's smile when I was a baby. He must have seen me. He must have visited me when I was in my cradle.

I remembered the swirling green trident that had appeared above my head the night of capture the flag, when Poseidon had claimed me as his daughter .

But this wasn't the sea. This was the Mississippi, dead center of the USA. There was no Sea God here.

"Die, faithless one," Echidna rasped, and the Chimera sent a column of flame toward my face.

"Father, help me," I prayed.

I turned and jumped. My clothes on fire, poison cours-ing through my veins, I plummeted toward the river.

DUN DUN DUUUUUN. :) HOPE Y'ALL LIKE IT


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13!I BECOME A KNOWN FUGITIVE

I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera.

The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!

The river raced toward me at the speed of a truck. Wind ripped the breath from my lungs. Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of my vision.

And then: Flaaa-boooom!

A whiteout of bubbles. I sank through the murk, sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever.

But my impact with the water hadn't hurt. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I set-tled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage-beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags-swirled up all around me.

At that point, I realized a few things: first, I had not been flattened into a pancake. I had not been barbecued. I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. I was alive, which was good.

Second realization: I wasn't wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, it felt perfectly dry.

I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.

No way, I thought.

I flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.

I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the cur-rent and immediately the paper turned dry. I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. Weird.

But the strangest thought occurred to me only last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally.

I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I should've been dead. The fact that I wasn't seemed like ... well, a miracle. I imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like my mother: Kim , what do you say?

"Um ... thanks." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid. "Thank you ... Father."

No response. Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch.

Why had Poseidon saved me? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I'd gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance. Those poor people in the Arch were prob-ably toast. I couldn't protect them. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, join the bottom feeders.

Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around.

There, not five feet in front of me, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.

I heard that woman's voice again: Kim , take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, I knew the voice wasn't in my head . I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.

"Where are you?" I called aloud.

Then, through the gloom, I saw her-a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine.

A lump formed in my throat. I said, "Mom?"

"No, child, only a messenger, though your mother's fate is not as hope-less as you believe. Go to the beach in Santa Monica.

"What?"

It is your father's will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, Kim , I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence.

"But ..." I was sure this woman was my mother, or a vision of her, anyway. "Who-how did you-" There was so much I wanted to ask, the words jammed up in my throat.

"I cannot stay, brave one, "the woman said. She reached out, and I felt the current brush my face like a caress. You must go to Santa Monica! And, Kim , do not trust the gifts...

Her voice faded.

"Gifts?" I asked. "What gifts? Wait!"

She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. If it was my mother, I had lost her again.

I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning. Your father believes in you, she had said.

She'd also called me brave ... unless she was talking to the catfish.

I waded toward Riptide and grabbed it by the hilt. The Chimera might still be up there with its snaky, fat mother, waiting to finish me off. At the very least, the mortal police would be arriving, trying to figure out who had blown a hole in the Arch. If they found me, they'd have some questions.

I capped my sword, stuck the ballpoint pen in my pocket. "Thank you, Father," I said again to the dark water.

Then I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface. I came ashore next to a floating McDonald's.

A block away, every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead. The crowd of onlookers reminded me of Times Square on New Year's Eve.

A little girl said, "Mama! That girl walked out of the river."

"That's nice, dear," her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances. "But she's dry!"

"That's nice, dear."

A news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

Survivors. I felt a surge of relief. Maybe the park ranger and that family made it out safely. I hoped jack and Jerry were okay.

I tried to push through the crowd to see what was going on inside the police line.

"... an adolescent girl," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent girl going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities ..."

I backed away, trying to keep my head down. I had to go a long way around the police perimeter. Uniformed offi-cers and news reporters were everywhere.

I'd almost lost hope of ever finding jack and Jerry when a familiar voice bleated, "kiiiiimmmm!"

I turned and got tackled by Jerry bear hug-or goat hug. He said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"

Jack stood behind him, trying to look angry, but even he seemed relieved to see me. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?"

"I sort of fell."

"Kim! Six hundred and thirty feet?"

Behind us, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. I recognized her immediately as the mother of the little boy who'd been on the observation deck. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua-"

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy! This girl jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." Then she saw me. "There she is! That's the girl!"

I turned quickly and pulled jack and Jerry after me. We disappeared into the crowd. "What's going on?" Jack demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

I told them the whole story of the Chimera, Echidna, my high-dive act, and the underwater lady's message.

"Whoa," said Jerry . "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."

Before jack could respond, we passed another reporter doing a news break, and I almost froze in my tracks when he said, "Kim Crawford . That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the girl who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young girl wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the girl is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Kim Crawford "

We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley. "First things first," I told Jerry . "We've got to get out of town!"

Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station with-out getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.

SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING...I HAVE NO EXCUSE.


	14. Chapter 14

**14 A GOD BUYS US CHEESEBURGERS**

**Kim's POV.**

The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and I was sure that was obvious.

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Jack said.

"I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"We can't use phones, right?" I asked

"I'm not talking about phones."

We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn't sure what Jack was looking for. The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humid-ity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at me, like a tidal wave about to crash into the city.

Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were three adolescents hang-ing out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.

"What exactly are we doing?" I asked, as Jerry took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Jack?"

"Don't look at me," he said. "The dining car wiped me out."

I fished out my last bit of change and passed Jerry a quarter, which left me two nickels and one drachma from Medusa's place.

"Excellent," Jerry said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."

"What are you talking about?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."

"Instant messaging?"

"Iris-messaging," Jack corrected.

"The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."

"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?"

Jerry pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist.

"Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow."

Sure enough, late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors. Jack held his palm out to me. "Drachma, please"

I handed it over.

He raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering."

He threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer. "Half-Blood Hill," Jack requested.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a Brown haired Girl in shorts and an orange tank top. She was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.

"Donna!" I called.

She turned, eyes wide. I could swear she was standing three feet in front of me through a screen of mist, except I could only see the part of her that appeared in the rainbow.

"Kim!" Her scarred face broke into a grin. "Is that Jack, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"

"We're ... uh ... fine," Jack stammered. he was madly straightening her dirty T-shirt, trying to comb the loose hair out of his face. "We thought-Chiron-I mean-"

"He's down at the cabins." Donnas smile faded.

"We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Jerry all right?"

"I'm right here," Jerry called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Donnas line of vision. "What kind of issues?"

Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.

"Chiron had to-what's that noise?" Donna yelled.

"I'll take care of it.'" Jack yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight. "Jerry, come on!

"What?" Jerry said. "But-"

"Give Kim the nozzle and come on!" He ordered.

Jerry muttered something about jack being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi, then he handed me the spray gun and followed Jack.

I readjusted the hose so I could keep the rainbow going and still see Donna.

"Chiron had to break up a fight," Donna shouted to me over the music.

"Things are pretty tense here, Kim. Word leaked out about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how-probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."

I shuddered to think that Clarisse's cabin would ever be on my dad's side for anything. In the next stall, I heard Jack and some guy arguing with each other, then the music's volume decreased drastically.

"So what's your status?" Donna asked me. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."

I told her pretty much everything, including my dreams. It felt so good to see her, to feel like I was back at camp even for a few minutes, that I didn't realize how long I had talked until the beeper went off on the spray machine, and I realized I only had one more minute before the water shut off.

"I wish I could be there," Donna told me. "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen ... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."

"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly."

"That's true," Donna said, looking troubled. "Still ... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."

We were both silent, until Donna seemed to realize what she'd said.

"Oh, hey," she protested. "I didn't mean Jack. He and I have known each other forever. He would never ... I mean, he's like a little brother to me."

I wondered if Jack would like that description. In the stall next to us, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash.

"You'd better go see what that was," Donna said.

"Listen, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."

"Oh ... uh, yeah!" I tried not to sound like a guilty liar. "Yeah, they've come in handy."

"Really?" She grinned. "They fit and everything?" The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.

"Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver," Donna called, her voice getting fainter. "And tell Jerry it'll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just-"

But the mist was gone, and Donna's image faded to nothing. I was alone in a wet, empty car wash stall.

Jack and Jerry came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw my face. Jacks smile faded. "What happened, Kim? What did Donna say?"

"Not much," I lied, my stomach feeling as empty as a Big Three cabin. "Come on, let's find some dinner."

A few minutes later, we were sitting at a booth in a gleam-ing chrome diner. All around us, families were eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas.

Finally the waitress came over. She looked about 15. And she was totally checking put Jack. I got this weird pang in my stomach. whatever i'll just ignore raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Well?"

I said, "We, um, want to order dinner."

"You kids have money to pay for it?"

Jerry's lower lip quivered. I was afraid he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum. Jack looked ready to pass out from hunger.

I was trying to think up a sob story for the waitress when a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.

All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather-but leather that looked like ... well, Caucasian human skin.

The guy on the bike would've made pro wrestlers run for Mama. He was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, and he had the cruelest, most brutal face I'd ever seen- handsome, I guess, but wicked-with an oily black crew cut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights. The weird thing was, I felt like I'd seen his face somewhere before.

As he walked into the diner, a hot, dry wind blew through the place. All the people rose, as if they were hypnotized, but the biker waved his hand dismissively and they all sat down again. Everybody went back to their conversations. The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, "You kids have money to pay for it?"

The biker said, "It's on me." He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Jack against the window.

He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, "Are you still here?"

He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she'd been spun around, then marched back toward the kitchen.

The biker looked at me. I couldn't see his eyes behind the red shades, but bad feelings started boiling in my stomach. Anger, resentment, bitterness. I wanted to hit a wall. I wanted to pick a fight with somebody. Who did this guy think he was?

He gave me a wicked grin. "So you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?"

I should've been surprised, or scared, but instead I felt like I was looking at my stepdad, Ty . I wanted to rip this guy's head off. "What's it to you?"

Jacks eyes flashed me a warning. "Kim, this is-" The biker raised his hand.

"S'okay," he said. "I don't mind a little attitude. Long as you remember who's the boss. You know who I am, little cousin?"

Then it struck me why this guy looked familiar. He had the same vicious sneer as some of the kids at Camp Half-Blood, the ones from cabin five.

"You're Clarisse's dad," I said. "Ares, god of war."

Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should've been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions.

"That's right, punk. I heard you broke Clarisse's spear."

"She was asking for it."

"Probably. That's cool. I don't fight my kids' fights, you know? What I'm here for-I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you."

The waitress came back with heaping trays of food-cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, and chocolate shakes.

Ares handed her a few gold drachmas.

She looked nervously at the coins. "But, these aren't..."

Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. "Problem, sweetheart?" The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.

"You can't do that," I told Ares. "You can't just threaten people with a knife."

Ares laughed. "Are you kidding? I love this country. Best place since Sparta. Don't you carry a weapon, punk? You should. Dangerous world out there. Which brings me to my proposition. I need you to do me a favor."

"What favor could I do for a god?"

"Something a god doesn't have time to do himself. It's nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town. I was going on a little ... date with my girl-friend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me."

"Why don't you go back and get it yourself?" The fire in his eye sockets glowed a little hotter.

"Why don't I turn you into a prairie dog and run you over with my Harley? Because I don't feel like it. A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Kim Crawford. Will you prove yourself a coward?" He leaned forward. "Or maybe you only fight when there's a river to dive into, so your daddy can protect you."

wanted to punch this guy, but somehow, I knew he was waiting for that. Ares's power was causing my anger. He'd love it if I attacked. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

"We're not interested," I said. "We've already got a quest."

Ares's fiery eyes made me see things I didn't want to see-blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. "I know all about your quest, punk. When that item was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis, and me, naturally. If I couldn't sniff out a weapon that powerful ..." He licked his lips, as if the very thought of the master bolt made him hungry. "Well ... if I couldn't find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your dad and I go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath."

"You told him Hades stole the bolt?"

"Sure. Framing somebody to start a war. Oldest trick in the book. I recognized it immediately. In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest."

"Thanks," I grumbled.

"Hey, I'm a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I'll help you on your way. I'll arrange a ride west for you and your friends."

"We're doing fine on our own."

"Yeah, right. No money. No wheels. No clue what you're up against. Help me out, and maybe I'll tell you something you need to know. Something about your mom."

"My mom?"

He grinned. "That got your attention. The water park is a mile west on Delancy. You can't miss it. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride."

"What interrupted your date?" I asked. "Something scare you off?"

Ares bared his teeth, but I'd seen his threatening look before on Clarisse. There was something false about it, almost like he was nervous.

"You're lucky you met me, Kim , and not one of the other Olympians. They're not as forgiving of rudeness as I am. I'll meet you back here when you're done. Don't disappoint me."

After that I must have fainted, or fallen into a trance, because when I opened my eyes again, Ares was gone. I might've thought the conversation had been a dream, but Jack and Jerry's expressions told me otherwise.

"Not good," Jerry said. "Ares sought you out, Kim. This is not good."

I stared out the window. The motorcycle had disappeared.

Did Ares really know something about my mom, or was he just playing with me? Now that he was gone, all the anger had drained out of me. I realized Ares must love to mess with people's emotions. That was his power-crank-ing up the passions so badly, they clouded your ability to think.

"It's probably some kind of trick," I said. "Forget Ares. Let's just go."

"We can't," Jack said. "Look, I hate Ares as much as anybody, but you don't ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune. He wasn't kidding about turning you into a rodent."

I looked down at my cheeseburger, which suddenly didn't seem so appetizing. "Why does he need us?"

"Maybe it's a problem that requires brains," Jack said. "Ares has strength. That's all he has. Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes."

"But this water park ... he acted almost scared. What would make a war god run away like that?" Jack and Jerry glanced nervously at each other.

Jack said, "I'm afraid we'll have to find out."

The sun was sinking behind the mountains by the time we found the water park. Judging from the sign, it once had been called WATERLAND, but now some of the letters were smashed out, so it read WAT R A D.

The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Inside, huge dry waterslides and tubes and pipes curled everywhere, leading to empty pools. Old tickets and adver-tisements fluttered around the asphalt. With night coming on, the place looked sad and creepy.

"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date," I said, staring up at the barbed wire,

"I'd hate to see what she looks like."

"Kim," Jack warned. "Be more respectful."

"Why? I thought you hated Ares."

Jack looked as if he was trying to choose his words carefully "He's still a god. And his girlfriend is very ...temperamental."

"You don't want to insult her looks," Jerry added.

"Who is she? Echidna?"

"No, Aphrodite," Jerry said, a little dreamily. "Goddess of love."

"I thought she was married to somebody," I said. "Hephaestus."

"What's your point?" he asked.

"Oh." I suddenly felt the need to change the subject. "So how do we get in?"

"Maia!" Jerry's shoes sprouted wings.

He flew over the fence, did an unintended somersault in midair, then stumbled to a landing on the opposite side. He dusted off his jeans, as if he'd planned the whole thing. "You guys coming?"

Jack and I had to climb the old-fashioned way, holding down the barbed wire for each other as we crawled over the top.

The shadows grew long as we walked through the park, checking out the attractions. There was Ankle Biter Island, Head Over Wedgie, and Dude, Where's My Swimsuit?

No monsters came to get us. Nothing made the slightest noise.

We found a souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise still lined the shelves: snow globes, pencils, postcards, and racks of-

"Clothes," Jack said. "Fresh clothes." "Yeah," I said. "But you can't just-" "Watch me."

I snatched an entire row of stuff of the racks and disappeared into the changing room. A few minutes later I came out in Waterland shorts, a blue Waterland T-shirt, and commemorative Waterland flip flops . A Waterland backpack was slung over my shoulder, obviously stuffed with more goodies.

"What the heck." Jerry shrugged. Soon, all three of us were decked out like walking advertisements for the defunct theme park.

We continued searching for the Tunnel of Love. I got the feeling that the whole park was holding its breath. "So Ares and Aphrodite," I said, to keep my mind off the grow-ing dark, "they have a thing going?"

"That's old gossip, Kim," Jack told me. "Three-thousand-year-old gossip."

"What about Aphrodite's husband?"

"Well, you know," he said. "Hephaestus. The black-smith. He was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus. So he isn't exactly handsome. Clever with his hands, and all, but Aphrodite isn't into brains and talent, you know?"

"She likes bikers."

"Whatever."

"Hephaestus knows?"

"Oh sure," Jack said. "He caught them together once. I mean, literally caught them, in a golden net, and invited all the gods to come and laugh at them. Hephaestus is always trying to embarrass them. That's why they meet in out-of-the-way places, like ..."

He stopped, looking straight ahead. "Like that."

In front of us was an empty pool that would've been awesome for skateboarding. It was at least fifty yards across and shaped like a bowl.

Around the rim, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire. On the opposite side from us, a tunnel opened up, probably where the water flowed into when the pool was full. The sign above it read, THRILL RIDE O' LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' TUNNEL OF LOVE!

Jerry crept toward the edge. "Guys, look."

Marooned at the bottom of the pool was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top and little hearts painted all over it. In the left seat, glinting in the fading light, was Ares's shield, a polished circle of bronze.

"This is too easy," I said. "So we just walk down there and get it?" Jack ran his fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue. "There's a Greek letter carved here," he said. "Eta. I wonder ..."

"Jerry," I said, "you smell any monsters?"

He sniffed the wind. "Nothing."

"Nothing-like, in-the-Arch-and-you-didn't-smell-Echidna nothing, or really nothing?"

Jerry looked hurt. "I told you, that was underground."

"Okay, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath. "I'm going down there."

"I'll go with you." Jerry didn't sound too enthusiastic, but I got the feeling he was trying to make up for what had happened in St. Louis.

"No," I told him. "I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. You're the Red Baron, a flying ace, remember? I'll be counting on you for backup, in case something goes wrong."

Grover puffed up his chest a little. "Sure. But what could go wrong?"

"I don't know. Just a feeling. Jack, come with me-"

"Are you kidding?" He looked at me as if I'd just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red.

"What's the problem now?" I demanded.

"Me, go with you to the ... the 'Thrill Ride of Love'? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?" Okay he sounded completely like a girl right them. Oh jack.

"Who's going to see you?" But my face was burning now, too. Leave it to a Jack to make everything complicated. "Fine," I told him. "I'll do it myself." But when I started down the side of the pool, he followed me, muttering about how girls always messed things up.

We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat, and next to it was a lady's silk scarf. I tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. Why? Then I noticed something I hadn't seen from up top: mirrors all the way around the rim of the pool, facing this spot. We could see ourselves no matter which direction we looked. That must be it. While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favorite people: them-selves.

I picked up the scarf. It shimmered pink, and the perfume was indescribable-rose, or mountain laurel. Something good. I smiled, a little dreamy, and was about to rub the scarf against my cheek when Jack ripped it out of my hand and stuffed it in her pocket. "Oh, no you don't. Stay away from that love magic."

"What?"

"Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let's get out of here."

The moment I touched the shield, I knew we were in trouble. My hand broke through something that had been connecting it to the dashboard. A cobweb, I thought, but then I looked at a strand of it on my palm and saw it was some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost Jack. A trip wire.

"Wait," Jack said.

"Too late."

"There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap."

Noise erupted all around us, of a million gears grinding, as if the whole pool were turning into one giant machine.

Jerry yelled, "Guys!"

Up on the rim, the Cupid statues were drawing their bows into firing position. Before I could suggest taking cover, they shot, but not at us. They fired at each other, across the rim of the pool. Silky cables trailed from the arrows, arcing over the pool and anchoring where they landed to form a huge golden asterisk. Then smaller metallic threads started weaving together magically between the main strands, making a net.

"We have to get out," I said.

"Duh!" Jack said.

I grabbed the shield and we ran, but going up the slope of the pool was not as easy as going down.

"Come on!" Jerry shouted.

He was trying to hold open a section of the net for us, but wherever he touched it, the golden threads started to wrap around his hands.

The Cupids' heads popped open. Out came video cam-eras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding us with illumination, and a loudspeaker voice boomed: "Live to Olympus in one minute ... Fifty- nine seconds, fifty-eight ..."

"Hephaestus!" Jack screamed. "I'm so stupid.' Eta is H.' He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!"

"We'll. now we know what Ares was scarred of" I mumbled.

We'd almost made it to the rim when the row of mir-rors opened like hatches and thousands of tiny metallic ... things poured out.

I screamed.

It was an army of wind-up creepy-crawlies: bronze-gear bodies, spindly legs, little pincer mouths, all scuttling toward us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.

"Spiders!" Jack said. "Sp-sp-aaaah!"

. I fell backward in terror and almost got overwhelmed by the spider robots before I pulled was up by Jack and dragged her back toward the boat.

The things were coming out from all around the rim now, millions of them, flooding toward the center of the pool, completely surrounding us. I told myself they proba-bly weren't programmed to kill, just corral us and bite us and make us look stupid. Then again, this was a trap meant for gods. And we weren't gods.

Jack and I climbed into the boat. I started kicking away the spiders as they swarmed aboard. I yelled at jack to help me, but he was too paralyzed to do much more than scream.

"Thirty, twenty-nine," called the loudspeaker.

The spiders started spitting out strands of metal thread, trying to tie us down. The strands were easy enough to break at first, but there were so many of them, and the spi-ders just kept coming. I kicked one away from Jacks leg and its pincers took a chunk out of my new surf shoe.

Jerry hovered above the pool in his flying sneakers, trying to pull the net loose, but it wouldn't budge.

Think, I told myself. Think.

The Tunnel of Love entrance was under the net. We could use it as an exit, except that it was blocked by a mil-lion robot spiders.

"Fifteen, fourteen," the loudspeaker called.

Water, I thought. Where does the ride's water come from?

Then I saw them: huge water pipes behind the mirrors, where the spiders had come from. And up above the net, next to one of the Cupids, a glass-windowed booth that must be the controller's station.

"Jerry!" I yelled. "Get into that booth! Find the 'on' switch!" "But-"

"Do it!" It was a crazy hope, but it was our only chance. The spiders were all over the prow of the boat now. I was screaming my head off. I had to get us out of there.

Jerry was in the controller's booth now, slamming away at the buttons. "Five, four-"

Jerry looked up at me hopelessly, raising his hands. He was letting me know that he'd pushed every button, but still nothing was happening.

I closed my eyes and thought about waves, rushing water, the Mississippi River. I felt a familiar tug in my gut. I tried to imagine that I was dragging the ocean all the way to Denver.

"Two, one, zero!"

Water exploded out of the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. I pulled Jack into the seat next to me and fastened his seat belt just as the tidal wave slammed into our boat, over the top, whisking the spiders away and dousing us completely, but not capsizing us. The boat turned, lifted in the flood, and spun in circles around the whirlpool.

The water was full of short-circuiting spiders, some of them smashing against the pool's concrete wall with such force they burst.

Spotlights glared down at us. The Cupid-cams were rolling, live to Olympus.

But I could only concentrate on controlling the boat. I willed it to ride the current, to keep away from the wall. Maybe it was my imagination, but the boat seemed to respond. At least, it didn't break into a million pieces. We spun around one last time, the water level now almost high enough to shred us against the metal net. Then the boat's nose turned toward the tunnel and we rocketed through into the darkness.

Jack and I held tight, both of us screaming as the boat shot curls and hugged corners and took forty-five-degree plunges past pictures of Romeo and Juliet and a bunch of other Valentine's Day stuff.

Then we were out of the tunnel, the night air whistling through our hair as the boat barreled straight toward the exit.

If the ride had been in working order, we would've sailed off a ramp between the golden Gates of Love and splashed down safely in the exit pool. But there was a problem. The Gates of Love were chained. Two boats that had been washed out of the tunnel before us were now piled against the barricade-one submerged, the other cracked in half.

Unfasten your seat belt," I yelled to jack. "Are you crazy?"

"Unless you want to get smashed to death." I strapped Ares's shield to my arm. "We're going to have to jump for it." My idea was simple and insane. As the boat struck, we would use its force like a springboard to jump the gate. I'd heard of people surviving car crashes that way, getting thrown thirty or forty feet away from an accident. With luck, we would land in the pool.

Jack seemed to understand. He gripped my hand as the gates got closer. "On my mark," I said.

"No! On my mark!"

"What?"

"Simple physics!" He yelled. "Force times the trajectory angle-" "Fine.'" I shouted. "On your mark!"

He hesitated ... hesitated ... then yelled, "Now!"

Crack!

Jack was right. If we'd jumped when I thought we should've, we would've crashed into the gates. He got us maximum lift.

Unfortunately, that was a little more than we needed. Our boat smashed into the pileup and we were thrown into the air, straight over the gates, over the pool, and down toward solid asphalt.

Something grabbed me from behind.

Jack yelled, "Ouch!"

Jerry!

In midair, he had grabbed me by the shirt, and jack by the arm, and was trying to pull us out of a crash landing, but Jack and I had all the momentum.

"You're too heavy!" Jerry said. "We're going down!"

We spiraled toward the ground, Jerry doing his best to slow the fall.

We smashed into a photo-board, Jerry's head going straight into the hole where tourists would put their faces, pretending to be Noo-Noo the Friendly Whale. Jack and I tumbled to the ground, banged up but alive. Ares's shield was still on my arm.

Once we caught our breath, Jack and I got Jerry out of the photo-board and thanked him for saving our lives. I looked back at the Thrill Ride of Love. The water was subsiding. Our boat had been smashed to pieces against the gates.

A hundred yards away, at the entrance pool, the Cupids were still filming. The statues had swiveled so that their cameras were trained straight on us, the spotlights in our faces.

"Show's over!" I yelled. "Thank you! Good night!"

The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. The park went quiet and dark again, except for the gentle trickle of water into the Thrill Ride of Love's exit pool. I wondered if Olympus had gone to a commercial break, or if our ratings had been any good.

I hated being teased. I hated being tricked. I hefted the shield on my arm and turned to my friends. "We need to have a little talk with Ares."

**TBC **

**SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN A MONTH. IM GOING TO BE HONEST, I DON'T HAVE AN EXCUSE BUT HEY THIS CHAPTER IS EXTRA LONG! **

**SEE YA LATER KITKATS**

**KISSES. K**


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